Pasta night!

My husband has been wanting a pasta maker since forever.  I have been searching my local craigslist and even came across one at my local goodwill.  I checked amazon and compared prices everywhere, but was never happy with the common $25 plus price listed.  Sure I could have offered something I was more comfortable with to a craigslist seller, but I honestly don't really like doing that.  I didn't want to offer my $12-15 range to someone and then deal with arranging a time in both our homes schedules that work and have to drive 15 minute to a half hour to get it.  When you add up the stress of finding an arrangement and the gas it takes to get too and from, it just didn't seem like a pay off in my mind.  So you can imagine my glee when I came across one at a local thrift store, and in my price range! My husband happened to be with me, which is not common while I'm thrifting, so I checked if he was interested and put it my basket.  

Here it is set up and ready to roll (hehe) on our table.  So shiny :-)  The flat roller has different numbered settings so you can roll the pasta thinner and thinner by adjusting the number higher and higher.  Then there is the attachment with the fettuccini and spaghetti cutters.  Tonight we made fettuccini.  So we got out our recipe book, which was also a thrift find, and got to work!

Usually the first time we try a new recipe or new food, my husband is always the first one to get on it.  It awesome because if it goes bad the first time, hey! At least it wasn't me :-P  There he goes starting the pasta dough.  It's essentially the same deal as when you make pie dough, the consistency is the same so now I know he can make a pretty damn good pie crust by hand.  I was telling him to through it in the mixer but the book was by hand.  Anyway, he makes the dough and when it's ready we rolled it out because what we really wanted to do was use the pasta maker.

So I took a turn rolling out the pasta, flatter and flatter until it was time to put it in the fettuccini cutter.  That's were the team work came it.  It helps if one person rolls the pasta maker while feeding in the pasta and the other person catches the newly cut fresh pasta.  We didn't have anything to hang the pasta so I has some hooks in my crafts supplies and some heavy duty thread.  Attached them to the underside of the cabinets and viola! We had a place to hang our pasta to dry :-D

Since the pasta is fresh it didn't take as long to cook as regular pasta from the store takes.  It's best to just hang near the stove and keep tasting until al dente.  

We decided that we would also get some fresh mussels to go with our pasta.  Se we did a simple pasta with butter,  garlic, Parmesan, lemon,  and parsley.  We steamed the mussels and it was amazing all together.  We had a fresh Italian, seafood meal for probably an 8th of what it would have cost in a restaurant! I also don't think I've ever had pasta that was 'made fresh in house daily' either :-P  

This dish was was super easy and also has the added advantage of cooking with your love :-). I hope you will try it too.  I know we will definitely make it again.  What's more, we can make different variations with fresh ingredients and really explore with pasta.  Also, ravioli! Don't even get me started on ravioli! 

Until next time, stay thrifty! :-D