Meatless Monday Returns with Homemade Pasta!

Over the weekend I tried my hand at making my own pasta.  This has been something that I have been waiting to try for a while, but it was only recently that I received that tool through which to make it...My amazing cousins, Miles and Curtis, gifted me (and David) a pasta making attachment for my (our) Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer as our wedding gift!!! WOOOOOOWWWWWWEEEEEEEEEE!!!! 

It is totally gorgeous! Three different rollers to make lasagna, fettuccine or spaghetti...and the best bit...your arm doesn't get sore/tired from turning the crank on a manual machine!!!!  Together they weigh a heck of a lot so a BIG thank you to Auntie Sandi who, again, dragged some ridiculously heavy kitchenware across the Atlantic to me!!!  

I've helped my mum make fresh pasta before.  She makes it often enough at home...especially in the run up to Christams.  She makes a bunch of fettuccine batches then bags them up and gives them as gifts...classy, homemade and totally unique! Anyway, from her I learnt the basics of making fresh pasta by hand but I've never really done it solo (and especially without her nearby to step in and save the day). 

I think I bit off a little bit more than I could chew. I thought that I would be able to do this no problem.  I had seen my mum and grandparents make pasta with their eyes closed, it is in my blood...so no problem at all! However...that is not quite how it played out. 

My mum makes her pasta dough in her Cuisinart, my grandparents make it by hand...I wanted to use the dough hook in the Kitchen Aid...I flipped through some of my cook books for recipes for the dough as I was a little nervous using my mum's since her's is specifically for the food processor, and settled on Jamie Oliver's simple pasta recipe (Jamie Oliver...reliable and satisfactory results the majority of the time).  In the end, after the ordeal I think the dough was a bit too wet...it stuck every so often in the rollers etc. etc. etc. 

I wont bore you with the tears and thumps and Julie Powell-esque moments...Needless to say the yummy roasted eggplant and ricotta ravioli filling I made ended up as a sort of open ravioli dish with yummy tomato and white wine cream sauce (the proper ravioli I made all stuck to the FLOURED board and couldn't be saved to cook)...I was so disappointed with my failed homemade ravioli that I couldn't bring myself to take a picture of what turned out to be an innovative and surprisingly tastey supper. 

Having since spoken to my mum about the pasta disaster we have come up with a number of things that might have contributed to the ruined supper...mostly though my mum thinks that I need to practice making the pasta BEFORE I attempt anything crazy like ravioli....Well, I don't mind practicing!!

I had only used a quarter of the dough to make the ravioli so I decided to turn the rest into fettuccine

The fettuccini worked pretty well (except for a few bits that got folded over and squished)...and we enjoyed it last night for our Meatless Monday Meal..Homemade Fettuccine with Tomato White Wine Cream Sauce topped with soft ricotta cheese!

Originally, I had wanted to make a tomato vodka cream sauce, but we didn't have any vodka in the house and I didn't really want to buy a bottle seeing as we don't drink it anyway, so instead I used white wine and it was pretty tasty.