For Christmas my mom gave me the pasta roller attachments for my KitchenAid mixer. Since the hubby and I took our trip to Italy a few years ago (where we also got engaged!) I have been wanting to try my hand at homemade pasta. Everything we ate in Italy was so fresh, the boxed variety didn't quite compare upon our return.
So I invited some of our closest friends over (just in case it was horrible, I knew they would still like us...) and spent the day making my own lasagne noodles, simmering bolognese sauce and learning to make a béchamel sauce.
I found a recipe for lasagne verde alla bolognese in a cookbook I also received for Christmas: The Glorious Pasta of Italy. This book is amazing, and has an excellent mix of classic and modern Italian recipes. Making lasagne noodles sounded like a good first-try at making my own noodles, since they remain wide (all though must be pressed pretty thin) it is just the rolling.
The lasagne is a traditional layered pasta with spinach-based flat noodles, slow-cooked bolognese sauce, béchamel cream sauce and fresh mozzarella and Parmagiano-Reggiano cheese.
Pressing out my own noodles was difficult (and amazing) and it took me awhile to really get the hang of it. Especially the ratio of semolina flour when rolling out the noodles: too much and the noodles would kind of fall apart, too little and they would stick to the pasta roller.
This dish was definitely a challenge, but considering I love cooking it was an amazingly fun challenge. And...it turned out delicious!
I didn't take any pictures of the process this time. I was focused on getting the dish right. But I will definitely take a lot of pictures next time, and there will definitely be a next time!
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