Home Made Noodles for Pasta

The thing about cooking that I always like to tell myself (and not to diss the real chef-artists in this world) is that cooking, or making food from basic ingredients is actually quite easy. Think about it. Many of the basic creations had their origins a long time ago and back in the day the people creating them; by and large were uneducated and everything was done by hand. So to make it 'it' had to be doable by the hands of commoner. And that is why with your big modern brain and some power tools you can do it too!

The only difference we have today in the preparation of food is the concept of time. Perhaps, we see that the time we have is so limited that we do not have the time to make our own food. Which is a big misconception. Next time think about it this way: did the old world baker have episodes of CSI: Miami to stay on top of? No, but she did live a quarter of the time as the modern ameture baker and was still able to master her craft, so you can too! 

What anyone chooses to waste there time on is there own business but for one to say 'I don't have the time’ in this day of intense leisure is completely a fallacy. So why does this all have to do with noodles anyway?

Well, noodles, if made by hand, take some time to make but at the end of the experience are beautiful to eat and share with your cast of friends and loved ones.

I don't have a gram scale to measure out the proper quantity but I do have a 2 cups/500 ml PYREX glass measuring cup that I filled to the point where the top of the entire container (yes that's the entire container, far beyond the) 2 cup/16 oz measuring cup line sits. To that added 2 large eggs a few shirts of Olive Oil, a little water and pinch of salt. I combine this in a bowl and mix with a wire whisk, fork or dough tool. If you have a food processor this will save you quite a bit of time, though you may have to adjust your quantities for the machine mix, I’m not sure why but every time I do this I find my Cuisineart tends to like dough a sukoshi moister in order to ‘ball up’ properly. 

Mix it till it becomes ‘doughy’ then work the dough till it become smoother dough, like a product you'b buy from the store without lumps etc. then roll onto a large cutting surface. The first time I did this I rolled and cut it straight onto my Ikea cutting board kitchen island and using just a rolling pizza cutter did some minor damage to the cutting block. From then on I’ve decided to cut it on an actual cutting block. 

Using a rolling pizza cutting tool and a straight edge I cut strips int he flat cutting dough. Usually, as I get into the tedious cutting process I recall that I can just eyeball the cuts of pasta making the straightest lines possible but keeping with the shifting irregularities to create that 

‘artisanal’ effect. 

Lay the cuts of pasta out on a towel to dry. Pasta is pretty much ready to go into the boil after its been made and cooking times vary depending on how dry the pasta became during the drying time. I usually let it dry to medium and boil for about 3-4 minutes to al dente! 

Winter Shiitake Mexican Squash Soup

Ingredients:
4 Mexican Squash
3-4-5 Small potatoes (depending on the size, mine were small and i used 5)
3 med Carrots
3-5 Stalks Celery
1 med white onion
3-5 garlic cloves
1 stick butter salted
1 tbsp salt (I'd say half this, it was a little too much, do to taste)
1 tsp red pepper flake
Black pepper to taste
1 14 Oz can chicken broth
1 14 Oz can beef broth
tbs grape or olive oil
3 tbs dried parsley flake (just cause its sitting around and I am trying to use it up, but i do think it enhanced the flavor)
1/2 Cup Dried Shiitake Ya Shiitake slices from Costco.

In a large to semi large pan, I always like a little room to wiggle, sauté up veggies working from the hardest to the softest. I also like to start with working from the most savory to least. i started with some oil in the pan then added the butter, for lower fat use more oil and less butter. Basically onions, potatoes, garlic, carrots, cellery and lastly the squash. I just slice everything up. Let it sauté in the pan about 20 minutes or untill everything is pretty broken down. Add the broths give it a stir let simmer for a few minutes. With a vertical blender turn it to liquid sludge adding water only if necessary. Let simmer another 10 Minutes and enjoy.

Lastly just cause I had them sitting around. I added some reconstituted dried Shiitake Mushrooms (about 1/2 cup dried let soak in boiled water about 20 minutes or longer) too which added another layer of warmth to the flavor but i don't think is necessary and the next time I'm going to try sans the mushrooms. This soup, like most was so amazing the following day that I had to pump out this post and snap a pic of the final bowl before I sink it to the bottom of my tum!

Here is a fun one I learned in a pinch from Meathead over at amazingribs.com. After my latest and final Indian Candy Salmon Smoke out I decided my old Brinkman water smoker was as rusty as the side quarter panel of 84 Dodge K car that’d seen too many Iowa winters. I don’t know if smoking out of a rusted up smoker is bad for you or not but it seemed pretty gross to me so out to the dumpster it went. Having some leftover ribs and hankering for a smoke I found the post from Meathead about how to turn your gas grill into a smoker. It works!

Here’s what I did:

First off got a large aluminum steam pan from the Smart and Final, see photo, for the water tray. Got a bread loaf sized aluminum tray for the wood chips. Found an old top shelf to a broiler pan to use as the rack for the ribs to sit on. For bigger smokes down the road I can use the rack from my oven, but since this one was small the broil pan piece worked just fine. Boiled up my water which I’ve seen some folks on various how to smoke not do and I think that’s pretty wasteful when the whole idea of the smoker is to have lots of steam circulating.

I kept the fire pretty low but ran all 3 burners in my grill. Definitely had some major heat leaks as the lid to my grill didn’t shut quite properly due to the extra equipment inside. It took a little while to get to full heat and for the chips to start to smoke. However once things got going there was plenty of smoke, almost too much as the wood chips eventually cooked into embers and perhaps could have combusted into a fire. I put some water on the chips and it killed the glowing embers. Additionally not seeing the smoke early on I took some of the chips and put them in foil that I wrapped up and poked some air holes into. This packet was definitely the first to smoke, eventually I had to had to seal up the foil in an attempt to damper down the smoldering chips.

All total the ribs took about 3 hours and only got as high on the temp as 212 Fahrenheit, one hour less than I would leave them on the old charcoal smoker, they charred up nicely with a good ‘bark’ and had a great tender consistency, I think that traditional smoker did render a more ‘smoky’ flavor but this was certainly cleaner and easier than setting up the old smoker and dealing with the all the charcoal. Living in Los Angeles I do think about all the smoke I’m putting into the air and the implications of burning a bunch of charcoal. Which leads me to debate what is the next smoker I’m going to purchase. Converting the grill was fast and easy but there is something to be said for the process and traditional feel of using charcoal, I mean nothing kills a Satruday in the fall better than smoking meat and watching college football on the TV in the backyard, much to my girlfriend’s chagrin.