An Apple a Day

For Christmas The Beecake got me the pasta attachment for my KitchenAid mixer. Does he know me, or what?



We started off with high aspirations: rigatoni, with roasted garlic chicken, cherry tomatoes and asparagus in light olive oil.

All was going well until we put the dough into the attachment to churn out the pasta. The attachment broke in half, so we ended up having to make the pasta by hand, which turned out pretty great for a couple of first time pasta makers.



Our first attempt at making pasta dough, before the pasta attachment FAIL. Note, those are not my man hands.

I love the process of making pasta, its so rustic and it reminds me that you don't need fancy attachments or equipment to make a really good meal. All those funny sounding foams and liquid nitrogen may a pretty meal make, but a good pair of clean hands are the best tools out there. I'll leave the fancy stuff to the pros.

Pasta is made with just a few ingredients: flour, salt & egg. The process is incredibly easy.

2 c. flour (you can use whole wheat to punch up the fiber factor)
3 large eggs
1/2 tsp salt

Seriously, that's it.

Form the flour into a mound on your counter and make a well in the center. Place the eggs and salt into the center and mix them up, without breaking the "O" shaped flour too much. Then slowly incorporate the egg mixture into the flour until you can form a ball of dough. This is the part that takes the time: knead that dough until it's smooth and there are no air pockets. It is about a 10-15 minute process to make sure the dough is smooth. From there you need to let the dough rest, covered, for about 15 more minutes until you can begin rolling the dough out (I cut the larger ball into three smaller balls) and cut into whatever shape you'd like.

We went simple and did a fettucine, but you could cut squares to make ravioli or you could make wide strips for lasagna.



The Beefcake cutting the rolled out pasta into thin strips.

You should dry the pasta for about an hour before cutting it, but we novices couldn't wait. :)



Fresh pasta only takes a few minutes to cook. Ours took about five minutes, and then we drained it and added it to a large skillet on the stove with our roasted garlic chicken, cherry tomatoes, and asparagus and tossed it with some olive oil and a little fresh lemon juice to brighten the dish up until it was all warmed through.



Add salt and pepper to taste and a chilled glass of Pinot Grigio and you have a healthy and homemade dinner!

Ahhhhhh risotto. Perfect, rich, creamy perfection. I could write sonnets about risotto. In short, I love it. Can't get enough of the stuff, no matter the ingredients. Throw some portobellos in there, maybe some butternut squash, lobster is divine, asparagus....gah. I'll stop right there. I could go on and on about the sexiness of this dish.

For the most part, I eat risotto when I'm dining out because let's face it -- cooking risotto is hard work! The constant stirring and adding broth is sometimes not worth the wait for most people.

My world traveler friend Jessica brought back this amazing, rustic bag of arborio rice from her most recent travels, so I thought, what better time than this to tackle a homemade risotto?



Keep in mind that in making the perfect, restaurant-quality risotto, you have to keep stirring the entire 20-30 minutes you are adding liquids. Trust me -- just do it!

To start, you'll just have the rice and broth (I added a couple of bay leaves, but it's not necessary).



The mixture will still be thin at this point, but heat, time, and liquid will produce a thick, creamy sauce. After the alloted 20-30 minutes of stirring and adding broth, you can add your mix-ins. I'm using peas in this recipe.



I always like a little cheese to add richness to my risottos, so after my peas, I went ahead and blended in some grated parmesan.

Finished product and official Weight Watchers recipe below.



2 tsp olive oil
1 medium onion(s), chopped
2 medium garlic clove(s), minced
1 1/2 cup uncooked arborio rice
5 cup reduced-sodium chicken broth
2 piece bay leaf
1 cup frozen green peas, thawed
1/4 cup parsley, fresh, chopped
4 Tbsp grated Parmesan cheese
2 Tbsp reduced-calorie margarine
1/8 tsp table salt, or to taste
1/8 tsp black pepper, or to taste

Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add onion and garlic; sauté 2 minutes. Add rice and cook until translucent, stirring constantly, about 2 minutes.

Add 1/2 cup of broth and bay leaves and simmer until liquid is absorbed, stirring constantly. Add remaining chicken broth, 1/2 cup at a time, waiting until liquid is absorbed before adding the next 1/2 cup (our risotto takes about 20 minutes to cook from the time the first liquid is added).

Remove bay leaves, fold in peas and cook until hot, about 1 minute. Remove from heat; fold in parsley, Parmesan cheese and margarine. Season to taste with salt and pepper and spoon risotto into shallow bowls; serve hot.

A few healthy tips I use are fat free chicken stock and olive oil instead of butter. Traditional risottos call for a lot of butter, but I didn't miss it in this recipe.

Enjoy!