Glory Quilts

Mindless Work

Sunday was  a long day. We had a stressful meeting at church that lasted FAR too long, and then we had the  family meeting discussed in my  previous entry. On Monday morning, my BELOVED husband offered to take Matthew to debate so I didn't have to go (I do NOT like going to debate.) I should have sewed. I got a meal going, and while I was returning a container to the pantry, a box in the deep recesses of the bottom shelf caught my eye. It was my pastry roller/slicer machine. I bought it at a thrift store for $5 several years ago and stuck it in the back of the pantry.

Well, instead of sewing, I decided to make pasta. After all, I already had a big pot of chicken soup on the  stove. It needed noodles! At that very moment, a friend called. She makes pasta, so I asked her how she did it.  She makes it in the bread machine on the dough cycle!! EXACTLY my kind of project. I use my bread machine for rolls, crusts, breadsticks, and other things at least three times a week. Now I can make pasta in it!

I looked at several cookbooks and started with a simple recipe - 2 eggs and 400 g. unbleached flour. It needed a little milk added to it to make it workable. The noodles turned out great. I looked on ebay for other attachments for my machine. My slicer makes thick spaghetti and fettucine - like medium egg noodles. I found a rack to drape the noodles over to dry. That was fun.

I opened a can of spinach and added some to the next batch of noodles. (I've been wondering what to do with that spinach!) It made a lovely green color. Then I made the next batch with half unbleached and half whole wheat flour. Then I made a batch like that with rosemary and basil from my garden blended into it. Then I made an unbleached batch with black pepper and then tried whole wheat spaghetti  using the narrow cutter.

It was the perfect project for a non-thinking day.

Oh - another project I finally got around to doing is the butter spread. I blended 1 C. butter with 3/4 C. light olive oil to make a soft spread for toast and pancakes. We don't use margerine, and my beloved husband won't let the butter sit out long enough to get soft, so the guys always microwave the butter to make it soft. We waste a lot of butter that way. I am hoping this will help conserve it. Butter is expensive! They said it spreads great and tastes fine.

I discovered another use for the breadmaker/pasta machine combination, too. The pasta roller makes nice thin crackers. I salted and baked up a batch of the pasta dough last night. I need a cracker recipe instead of a pasta recipe, but it will clearly work very well for that. The guys ate all the pasta crackers with no complaint or leftovers! LOL 

After this workout, my breadmaker needed to be cleaned and oiled. That  pasta dough is tougher than regular bread dough!

I really enjoyed making pasta. Draping it on the drying racks reminded me of hanging tinsel on the Christmas tree. The perfect brainless activity for a burned out mind. I guess I have to be back to real work today, though. I have several dresses to finish  for our design guild's Easter launch, and we have Bible study tonight.

Untitled Comment

12:04, Tuesday, January 31 .. Posted by angelstar

I loved reading your blog and your noodle making sounded like fun. I love my bread machine and use it for a lot of stuff, too. I hope you will find a place that fits everyone's needs, but allows you to have the wide open spaces that you need, too. God Bless!