Homemade Noodles - Daring Cooks' Challenge July 2011

Steph from Stephfood was our Daring Cooks' July hostess. Steph challenged us to make homemade noodles without the help of a motorized pasta machine. She provided us with recipes for Spätzle and Fresh Egg Pasta as well as a few delicious sauces to pair our noodles with!

I have committed the cardinal sin of the food blogger. I forgot to take a picture of the completed dish. Ooops. We had friends over for dinner and I was quite stressed about the ravioli falling apart/sticking together/getting soggy/going cold. So you'll have to take my word for it that the spinach and ricotta ravioli you see above was cooked and served with a most delectable ragu and lashing of parmesan cheese.

Our host suggested that as an extra challenge we look for noodles from our own cultural background. I couldn't think of any particularly Scottish or North American noodles, but I did use my late Grandma's pasta machine to make the noodles.

I used two recipes from Marcella Hazan's Essential's of Classic Italian Cooking - Spinach and Ricotta Ravioli and Ragu Bolognese. This is one of very favorite cookbooks and has never ever failed me. The noodle making process was quite tricky and my ravioli were all different shapes and thicknesses. The end result was far from professional but it tasted good. I think I will let the pictures I did take tell (most 0f) the story. They don't show me swearing or cursing my decision to make ravioli or begging Tom for an extra pair of hands, but you can use your imagination.

Thanks to Steph for this challenge. I am sorry that I didn't get around to making spatzle because that looks really fun, but I intend to try that soon.