One of my other favorite creative outlets is cooking. Using fresh ingredients and cooking comfort foods are some of my favorite inspirations. This past week I did quite a bit of cooking and I thought I would share with you a few pictures of the process. Tuesday we had homemade pasta. 
If you have never made your own pasta before I highly recommend it. All it takes is flour, eggs, a bit a of salt and a splash of olive oil and you have a endless possibilities. Maddie's favorite part is cutting the dough into the noodles. The whole process is indeed easier with an extra set of hands. 
We made both skinny spaghetti and big thick fettucinis. The spaghetti is in the freezer for future use.
Just a simple tomato sauce is all that is needed and some sausage makes it complete. Strike that, good Parmesan and Romano make it heaven.
Thursday we had Shepherd's pie. I had some of the filing from the rice balls from Santa Lucia left over in the freezer. I made some more and mixed it all together.
Then I made homemade ricotta cheese. Another delicacy that I highly recommend. See that spoon there, it is for tasting the warm soft cheese as it strains. Mmm...the best stuff in the world.
The cheese gets added to my mashed potatoes which also get flavor from a whole stick of butter. This is not a low fat meal by any means, and not something I cook often.
Mmm...the richest potatoes you'll ever taste.
And here is the shepherd's pie all ready to go into the oven.
Not everything do I make from scratch however. I do cheat occasionally and use this for my brown gravy. It actually is a good substitute for the real thing when I am lacking drippings for a proper sauce.
I had made two pies and froze one of them to give to my IL's but my children insisted that I keep it. So I guess I will take that as approval. Now with the rest of the ricotta I will be making ricotta gnoccis this coming week. They are like the potato ones but w/ the cheese instead of the potatoes, sorta like a ravioli all in one package.
But the only dilemma I have is where to put the left overs.
If you have never made your own pasta before I highly recommend it. All it takes is flour, eggs, a bit a of salt and a splash of olive oil and you have a endless possibilities. Maddie's favorite part is cutting the dough into the noodles. The whole process is indeed easier with an extra set of hands. 
We made both skinny spaghetti and big thick fettucinis. The spaghetti is in the freezer for future use.
Just a simple tomato sauce is all that is needed and some sausage makes it complete. Strike that, good Parmesan and Romano make it heaven.
Thursday we had Shepherd's pie. I had some of the filing from the rice balls from Santa Lucia left over in the freezer. I made some more and mixed it all together.
Then I made homemade ricotta cheese. Another delicacy that I highly recommend. See that spoon there, it is for tasting the warm soft cheese as it strains. Mmm...the best stuff in the world.
The cheese gets added to my mashed potatoes which also get flavor from a whole stick of butter. This is not a low fat meal by any means, and not something I cook often.
Mmm...the richest potatoes you'll ever taste.
And here is the shepherd's pie all ready to go into the oven.
Not everything do I make from scratch however. I do cheat occasionally and use this for my brown gravy. It actually is a good substitute for the real thing when I am lacking drippings for a proper sauce.
I had made two pies and froze one of them to give to my IL's but my children insisted that I keep it. So I guess I will take that as approval. Now with the rest of the ricotta I will be making ricotta gnoccis this coming week. They are like the potato ones but w/ the cheese instead of the potatoes, sorta like a ravioli all in one package.
But the only dilemma I have is where to put the left overs.
2 comments:
Everything looks yummy! And your fridge looks like ours. NO room. ;)
Wow, my mouth is watering! Yummy!!!
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