Fresh Tomato Pasta Noodles AKA "The Sauceless Linguine"

The first time I made homemade pasta noodles was New Years Eve two years ago. I decided to attempt 2 pounds of linguine the afternoon before my friend's dinner party. Little did I realize it was going to take 5 hours, stiff legs and a sore neck to get the job done. The result was phenomenal, completely worth the effort, and I fell in love with the art of homemade pasta. I have experimented with it several times, and after getting a pasta maker and drying rack from my grandparents this Christmas, I am ready to try every pasta variety I can think of... and I bet I can think of a lot.

I make my pasta noodles with the Roma Traditional Style Pasta Machine, rolled out to thinness setting 4 or 5 and pressed through the linguine cutter. These are whole wheat linguine noodles flavored with tomato paste. I'm not a lover of marinara sauce, so I was stuck on the idea of a pasta that could be eaten without sauce. I mixed it up with some olive oil, fresh basil and mini mozzarella balls. No sauce necessary - the tomato flavor is already in the pasta!

Fresh Tomato Pasta Noodles AKA "The Sauceless Linguine"
Makes: 1 lb  Prep: 1 hour, 30 minutes  Total: 3 hours

Ingredients
3 cups whole wheat flour
3 eggs
2 tbs olive oil
1 1/2 tsp salt
3 tbs tomato paste
3/4 cups water

Directions
In a large bowl, pour flour and dig a well in the middle large enough to hold your other ingredients. Add eggs, olive oil, salt, tomato paste and water into the center of the flour. With a fork, begin to break the egg yolks and whisk the wet ingredients inside the flour well until fully incorporated. Gradually start to whisk in flour a small amount at a time until dough forms.
Remove dough and place onto a floured surface. Knead the dough for 5 minutes, adding more flour or water as needed to gain the right consistency. When the dough is finally solid and elastic, cover in plastic wrap and let set for 20 minutes.
Remove plastic and cut pasta into 1-inch thick slices. Begin rolling through pasta maker until preferred thickness is achieved. Roll through linguine cutter, separate noodles and hang dry on pasta drying rack. Repeat until all dough is used. Let pasta hang until dried, about one hour, and store in an air tight container until ready to use. (Uncooked fresh pasta will last in the fridge for 3-4 days. Freeze pasta for a longer keeping period.)
Boil water and cook noodles for 3 minutes. Remove, drain and enjoy!

Pumpkin Baked Ziti

For those of you who don't know me personally, I'm somewhat holiday-obsessed. Every Halloween, I carve pumpkins. Every Easter, I dye Easter eggs. And every time Christmas rolls around, you bet I'm sitting on the floor of my apartment cutting out paper snowflakes instead of studying for finals. Many of my friends say they hate holidays, and that after childhood the excitement wears away and the fun is gone. Maybe I'm just 9-years old at heart, but I think I will always perform these rituals because I grew up with them, they connect me to home, and make me feel closer to the people around me. Call me lame, but while the holiday naysayers are complaining, I'm skipping around having the time of my life!

I concocted this dish about two weeks in advance before my Halloween party, and it came out just as I'd hoped. I've never been a big marinara fan, so I created my own pasta sauce using organic pumpkin, vegetable broth, onion, cream, brown sugar, nutmeg, and cayenne pepper. I made 2 pounds of pasta to serve a big group of people, but scaled down the recipe for 1 pound which can easily feed a family, small group of friends, or a single person who loves leftovers! I guess cannibalistic pumpkins can eat it, too?

Pumpkin Baked Ziti
Serves: 4-6 people  Prep: 40 minutes  Total: 1 hour, 10 minutes

Ingredients
1 lb whole wheat rotini pasta
1 yellow onion
1/2 tbs brown sugar
1/2 tbs nutmeg
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1 15-ounce can organic pumpkin
1 cup vegetable broth
1/4 cup heavy cream
1 1/2 tbs fresh thyme
10-ounces gruyere cheese (shredded)
1/2 cup parmesan cheese
1/2 cup whole wheat bread crumbs

Directions
Cook rotini in a large pot as directed until al dente. Strain and set aside.
Dice onion and saute in olive oil on medium heat until tender, about 3 minutes. Add brown sugar, nutmeg and cayenne pepper and cook for another 2 minutes. Stir in pumpkin and vegetable broth, bring sauce to a boil and simmer uncovered on low heat for 15 minutes. Pour in heavy cream and stir well. Add thyme and simmer for another 20 minutes. When the sauce is done, remove from heat and let sit.
Begin assembling the zita by layering a greased baking dish with half of the rotini pasta, half of the sauce, and half of gruyere. Again, layer half the pasta, sauce and gruyere. Top with parmesan and bread crumbs. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until the cheese is fully melted and the top is slightly browned.

Caprese Pasta Salad

I originally made this recipe on a lazy day last summer. My friends and I were sitting by the pool craving a cool pasta salad. The original recipe was made with feta, but I decided to try fresh mozzarella balls and I'm happy I did. This meal takes 15 minutes to prep and is great served fresh, or cold the next day. Whether you're in the mood for a steamy hot pasta dish, or a cold side at a barbecue, this is the perfect recipe!

Caprese Pasta Salad
Serves: 6  Prep: 15 minutes  Total: 15 minutes

Ingredients
1 pound whole wheat pasta
2 cups of cherry tomatoes, halved
1 cup fresh mozzarella, chopped
1 cup basil, chopped
3 tbs olive oil
3 tbs vinegar

Directions
Boil water in a pot and cook pasta until al dente. Add tomatoes, mozzarella and basil to the pasta and mix well. Pour oil and vinegar over and toss. Serve immediately or refrigerate to serve cold.

Interim Eats

This whole blogging thing is still relatively new to me, and this year so far I have obviously not done a good job of documenting my cooking. This is due to a new job, dead camera with mysterious missing charger, lack of money to buy ingredients, and a whole list of other excuses I'm sure I could think up.

Regardless, I am determined to get back on track. I want to prove to myself that cooking good food on a tight budget is possible. And believe me... no one has a tighter budget than a college student, especially when it comes to food. (Easy Mac, anyone?) While I gear up for this blogging revival, here is a photo gallery of just a few dishes I happened to document while on hiatus. Enjoy!

Twice Baked Potatoes - Yum! One of the holiday staples in my family. Simply bake the potatoes, remove filling and blend with milk, butter, cheddar cheese and horseradish. Sprinkle with cheese and chives, throw them in the oven and voila! Let's be honest, how can you go wrong with cheese and potato?

Homemade Pesto Linguine - This was my first attempt at real homemade pasta. For some insane reason, I decided that on New Years Eve I would make two pounds of fresh pasta for my best girl friends at our annual New Years party. I gotta say, five hours in the kitchen and racing to slip into my New Years dress was TOTALLY worth it. It took some trial and error but I will absolutely be making this again. Some photos of the process...

 

Making the dough was one of the easier parts of this adventure. It was all about finding the right balance between egg, flour, water and olive oil.

Flattening the dough into paper-thin sheet turned out to be way harder than I expected. About one hour in I found my groove, which made the rest of the process a lot faster.

Pressing the sheet into linguine noodles.

 

Drying the noodles on a pasta drying rack.

Pesto, pre-blend.

The finished product in action! And the perfect way to ring in the new year.

Valentine's Day Dinner - My boyfriend Dylan and I both love to cook, so we decided to stay in this Valentine's Day and make a gourmet meal of our own: filet mignon, slow roasted plum tomatoes and creamy spinach. This took maybe 40 minutes tops, with no hassle and plenty of time to enjoy our Bordeaux and delicious spread of cheeses. It was the perfect evening - we almost forgot we were in a dorm!

The set-up.

The meal.

To this day I still think this is the best, juiciest filet mignon I have ever tasted. (I left Dylan with this treacherous task, and he did better than I ever could. Thanks, love!)

Pasta Sauce Alternative

Being a college student, I'm naturally broke. Thus, my pantry is usually stocked with $1 boxes of pasta and not much else. This is great except for the fact that I never invest in pasta sauce to go along with it. So here's a trick I always use. Instead of buying sauce, grill up vegetables in a pan with some olive oil and use them to top your pasta.

This is also a great way to get rid of produce before it goes bad. I love cherry tomatoes but can never finish a whole package, so the other day I chopped them up along with some leftover sage, grilled them for about 10 minutes, and seasoned with salt and pepper. In the time it took me to boil water and cook my pasta I had a big healthy meal prepared, and I didn't even have to go to the store!

Thursday Fiests: October

This year, my girlfriends and I started the tradition of Thursday night dinners. Sometimes we stay in and make food, and sometimes we go out in search of new restaurants in the city. This past Thursday, I wanted to try a recipe I found in October's Bon Appetit magazine. It looked a lot harder than anything I'd made before, but I really wanted to tackle it. Four hours and several sliced fingers later... ta-da!

Click Here to try it!

Ok, so this is clearly not my picture but I couldn't get a great one while cooking and I was having too good of a time with my friends to worry about capturing it. Even though I spent hours in the kitchen that I should have spent writing a paper, it was well worth it. My friends raved about this dish the entire evening, and not gonna lie I did a pretty damn good job. I think I'll appreciate homemade pasta way more now after making it myself. The only bad thing about this recipe when it comes to college cooking is it called for a potato ricer. (I still don't really know what that is.) But with a little Google searching I decided that it looked like a garlic press for turning potato into pasta, so I ended up chopping the potato into little cubes and pushing it through our garlic press. Time consuming but it got the job done. Another key to this recipe is in the Parmesan. I made sure to get the freshest grated Parm possible, and it definitely made a difference. So, if you have a day with not much to do and are feeling ambitious, I certainly recommend you try this out! The final product is rewarding and absolutely worth the effort.

Oh, and to top it all off, why not a four layer pumpkin cake with cream cheese frosting?

We might need to institute Friday night gym dates next...