Thursday, July 14, 2011

Daring to do it: Handmade Noodles

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 live in the best neighborhood ever. When Baby Girl was born the neighbors got together and made a schedule to provide dinners for us. As much as I love to cook, it was SO appreciated to have the chance to not worry about timing and being in the kitchen. I felt badly, though, since we have dietary restrictions in our family. Because of the vegetarian and Kosher limits, many of the meals we were gifted with were pasta based. Which is fabulous, as we all like pasta, especially Little Girl! But then this challenge was posted... More pasta... Yummy, but possibly a bit of overkill! What was I to do? It was time to be a little creative...


The first dish I made was gnocchi. I love gnocchi. I love potatoes, so what could be bad about potato pasta dumplings? I have actually made gnocchi before, so I didn't really rely on a recipe. Mashed potatoes, seasonings and whole wheat flour, mixed together until it "felt right." (Proportions? Measurements? Who knows!) Little Girl helped me roll the dough into snakes, and then we cut them into pillows and used a fork to give them the traditional gnocchi look. The cooked gnocchi made a great lunch dressed with garlic butter and shredded cheese.Even with the vast amount of pasta we had been eating, I was really intrigued by one of the recipes Staph provided - spatzle (spaetzle?). I had heard of spatzle before, but hadn't known what it really was. It looked like a good, quick and yummy version of pasta. But more pasta? Well, me being me, I decided that I was going to make it, but not quite as given. Introducing chocolate spaetzle! I replace part of the flour with cocoa powder, and used cinnamon and sugar as the seasoning, but otherwise left the recipe alone. And instead of the breadcrumb "dressing," I used graham crackers (and topped it with chocolate sauce...!). Yes, it was still pasta, but it was dessert! I was excited about it, and the leftovers didn't last long!
I thought that would be it for me for this month. Two recipes for the month more than covered the "requirement" for my participation. But the egg pasta looked too good to pass up. So dinner for the last night before posting was handmade egg pasta with roasted veggies. The dough came together very well and very easily - it was done with my right hand while I held a fussy five week old Baby Girl in my left hand. (Oh, yeah, I am left handed...) Then Little Girl helped me roll the dough out. So it was a family affair! The noodles were so good! I commented to Hubby as we sat down to eat that the house smelled like fresh pasta... And Little Girl came back for seconds. And thirds. And fourths, I think!


Steph, this was a really exciting challenge! I love the freedom we had to explore the world of handmade noodles, and it was a lot of fun to see what our fellow Daring Cooks came up with. If you want to see for yourself, take a look here.

14 comments:

  1. Love the idea of a dessert spatzle! Sounds delicious!

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  2. Wow - your chocolate spätzle is so inspiring!

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  3. All of your pastas look great! I'm so impressed you could do three variations with a newborn in hand!

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  4. Wow! dessert spaetzle?!?! How fun is that?!! love the variety of pasta you created this month. I can't imagine pulling all that together with a BabyGirl on my hip too. Great job!

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  5. Ruth! You are my hero! Not only because doing all that with small kids and a 5 week old baby... ( wow! You are brave! ) but also because chocolate pasta was a brilliant creation, I saw some other DCs doing dessert pasta also, and I was so thrilled! I must try this out some time! Your other creations must have been delicious, and so healthy. You did much more than an amazing job on this challenge, congrats!

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  6. Yea chocolate! I love it. I almost did chocolate pasta. Both of yours look so good and bravo for doing it with a baby in the house! Great job!

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  7. Yay for the chocolate spaetzle. I love it!:)

    Congrats on the new baby.:)

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  8. Chocolate spätzle! A-MAZ-ING! That sounds totally decadent... Fantastic job with the challenge - thanks for sharing!!

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  9. I think spaetzle are my second-favourite pasta (very close behind gnocci) -- I love them tender and buttered -- but I can't believe I'd never thought of dessert spaetzle! Definitely on my "to try" list; brilliant!

    : ) I am so impressed by your pasta adventures this month -- you definitely rose well above the challenge!

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  10. I can't believe all you can do with a newborn in one arm! I love the idea of the chocolate spaetzle with the graham cracker crumbs. I really wanted to make a dessert pasta, and even bought ingredients, but I just ran out of time. Hopefully I'll have a bit of time in September!
    :)

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  11. Your little helper is great - as always. Mine can't help me in the kitchen yet but she's a great eater ;) Love the idea fo chocolate spaetzle!
    Pozdrowienia. Anula.

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  12. Wow! I'm loving the sound of that chocolate spaetzle. What a brilliant idea! That's taking comfort food to a whole new level. Gorgeous noodles too!

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  13. Ruth, I love every one of your three pasta prepa, especially the chocolate spaetzle with chocolate sauce and graham cracker crumbs. That is ingenius and look incredible! I'm with you on the house smelling like pasta. When I rolled out and cooked my ravioli, same thing. Nothing like a homemade smelling kitchen, just like grandma's :) Also, I could never understand why some succumb to what blogging workshops and conferences tell them they should do to attract people to their blogs. Fine if one wants to gain fame and money, but isn't being yourself the best way to do so? Who wants to read a character when the most interesting character is 'yourself' - flaws, imperfections and all :)

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