Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Kitchen Adventure...

Last week I decided to make lasagna for dinner tonight. Then, when I went to the store, I forgot the lasagna noodles. Don't ask me how, they were on the list. So I thought all weekend about running to the store to buy some But, one $1 purchase just never justified going. Bright idea: why not make them from scratch?

I Googled "lasagna noodles whole wheat recipe." Guess what I found? Nothing. Interesting, because I had recently seen a recipe in a book I got from the library. After much pondering, I decided to take a recipe that called for all-purpose flour and use that, but sub in whole wheat flour. (Side note: I had a LOT of extra flour this week when I ground my wheat, so I figured that even if they failed, I could spare the expense...)

The recipe I decided to use was extremely simple:
2 1/4 C flour
3 whole eggs

I threw the ingredients in the Kitchenaid, and finished putting the granola into the oven. When I got back to the mixer, I noticed that I needed to add some water. Not a lot, maybe 1/8 C. The dough ball formed like it was supposed to (according to the recipe, remember, I had NEVER made any type of pasta before!). I let it get glossy, well, as glossy as I thought whole wheat pasta dough could get. And then I wrapped it in a damp towel and let it rest for 15 minutes (necessary, per the recipe).

Here is the adventurous part... Rolling! Goodness, I had no idea how much work it would be to roll, fold, roll, fold, roll, fold, roll! And, I had to do it 4 times (rolling the dough in quarters was actually a good thing, for lack of counter space). I think I will have sore muscles tomorrow! My arms were limp for an hour afterward.

In the end, I had some noodles left over, so I rolled them into a log sliced it into small pieces and boiled them like regular noodles. Man, were they tasty! I am extremely excited to taste the final product of the assembled lasagna.

After tasting my homemade noodles, I had the thought... It is really pretty sad that we consider these home-made whole-wheat noodles to be gourmet. 100 years or so ago, it would have been all you got! The things we take for granted.

1 comment:

  1. Wow, that is impressive. I have had noodles from scratch, but never made them.

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