Titania Pasta Maker

I have been putting off getting a pasta maker for years. The ones that I have found were big, bulky and expensive. And pasta is cheap, so why bother?

Well, I tried homemade noodles a couple of months ago. I have pledged to reduce my purchases of corporate products and non-corporate pasta is expensive! -- but tastes SO GOOD!! So instead of paying $6 for a bag of egg noodles, I just made them myself. My family declared that only homemade noodles would suffice from that day on.

Which is great except for the fact that they are really time consuming when you are cutting all the pasta into strips with a knife.

So a couple of weeks ago, I was in a store looking for a smaller stock pot for canning just a few jars at a time, and instead found a compact pasta maker for $35. It impressed me enough that I bought it without even researching it first. It ended up being probably the most perfect pasta maker I could have gotten.

It is Titania from Imperia. The reviews I eventually read indicated that it was an authentic Italian pasta maker - the one that an Italian household would most likely be using.The pasta is easy to make. It is just flour, eggs, a little salt, and oil. I don't even measure. The consistency should be like bread dough when it is all mixed and kneaded thoroughly.
Now a lot of the reviews complained that the maker took more than two hands to operate. I was able to work the machine without clamping it to anything and while holding the video camera under my chin. And all the while I had three dogs dancing around my feet looking for fallen pasta scraps. I think those facts illustrate the actual ease of use of this pasta maker. I did not let the dough rest. I just rolled a ball of the dough in a little flour before trying to roll it through. You do have to start on a wide setting and work your way down to a thinner setting or your dough will shred and it is much harder to get it through the rollers if you skip too many widths.

I used the noodles I made in the video in this vegetable and chicken broth soup. Celery, carrots, kohlrabi, sweet onion, sauteed with olive oil, and seasoned with a little ginger. A couple chicken bouillon cubes, water and the cooked noodles. It was delicious!

And the noodles from start to finish probably took less time to make and cook than it would have taken store-bought dried noodles to cook. With homemade noodles this fast and easy, I don't think it will be hard at all meeting my family's declaration!

Tomato Lentil Soup/Casserole

I needed to make a quick meal and had been remembering a wonderful minestrone that I had whipped up once, so I decided to try that again. Except I couldn't exactly remember how I had made it, so what I ended up with was different, but equally as wonderful.

I call this a "soup/casserole" since it could really be either. When it was first done cooking it still had a soup consistency, but as it sat, the noodles soaked up most of the remaining liquid and it became a casserole. Either way was very good.

• 3 cloves garlic minced (I used the garlic I grew this year)
  
• 1/2 medium onion, chopped or diced
  
• 3 TBS olive oil
• 1 pint tomato sauce (I used the sauce I canned this fall - YUM!)
• 3 TBS ground Italian seasoning (basil, oregano, thyme, and rosemary mix)
• 1 TSP sea salt
• 2 cups reconstituted lentils (about 1 cup dried - I used two lentils: French and brown)
• 2 stalks celery, diced
• 3 medium carrots, sliced (you can leave the skins on)
• 2 handfuls of uncooked pasta (your choice - used egg noodles)
  

The first thing that you want to do is start the lentils reconstituting by placing them in a bowl and pouring near boiling water over them.

Heat the olive oil on medium in a soup pan while you mince the garlic and chop/dice the onion. Saute the garlic and onions in the olive oil while you dice the celery. Saute the celery while you slice the carrots. If you like your carrots firm, hold off placing them in the pot until later.


Dump the tomato sauce into the pot. Add a pint of water and mix in the Italian seasoning. Rinse the lentils and add to pot. Simmer for ten minutes. Add the pasta (and carrots if you didn't do that earlier) and simmer until the pasta is cooked. You may need to add extra water during this process (but make sure that the liquids remain bubbly hot or the pasta will cook pasty - Yuck!)

Salt to taste.

This was quick and easy to make. I really liked this and so did my husband (who isn't a big shelled bean fan). It will make great leftovers for lunch tomorrow as well :)

Lasagna Bake

I had a bunch of ingredients that needed to be used up: mozzarella, cottage cheese, sweet onion, and unflavored yogurt. Hmmm... what could I make?

Lasagna bake!!!

What's that? What about the yogurt? Trust me.

First, turn the oven on to 350F and grease a lasagna pan well with olive oil.

• 1 lb mini lasagna noodles
• 1/2 lb shredded mozzarella
• 1/2 lb cottage cheese
• 1/3 lb plain yogurt
• 1 lb ground turkey
  
• 1/2 sweet onion
• 1 jar/can favorite spaghetti sauce
• 1 TBS garlic salt
• 2 cup shredded mozzarella for topping
  
• Parmesan

Par-cook the noodles and mix with the mozzarella, cottage cheese, and yogurt.

Then mix in the spaghetti sauce and ground turkey sauteed with sweet onions, garlic salt, and top with shredded mozzarella and parmesan.

Bake for about an hour at 350F.

How was it?

DEEE-LICIOUS!!

Traditional Manicotti

I got this recipe from the 1000 Vegetarian Recipe book. I'm telling you, I LOVE that book!!

2 heaping cups of cottage cheese (it was supposed to be ricotta, but I had to substitute cottage cheese + romano)
1/4 cup Romano (see, I told you)
3/4 a package of frozen spinach
1 cup chopped mixed sweet peppers
3 chopped scallions.

This is what it looks like all mixed up. I also added some salt and pepper.

This recipe is actually called "Traditional Canelloni" in the book, but I didn't have canelloni, I had manicotti. Hey, it's all just pasta.

Cook the pasta most of the way. Drain and run cold water over it to cool it down enough to handle it, because you have to stuff them.

The book showed someone using a spoon to stuff the pasta, but good luck with that. I used my hands. We evolved them for a reason, you know.

Here is Neo asking if he can have some yet. Doesn't it look like you could just stuff him in one of the manicotti?

Awe! What a cutie!!

But NO!! You can't have any!

Put the stuffed pasta in a grease baking dish. Pour pasta sauce over the top. I made my own with tomatoes I canned from my own garden, but you can use what you want. The sauce should just about cover the pasta.

Sprinkle romano and parmesan on top and cook in for 30-40 minutes at 375 F; or until the pasta is completely cooked and the cheese on top is browned.
Mine didn't quite make it to the browned stage since my son kept hounding me about when it would be done.

Like every five minutes!!

It was pretty good. Well, I'll say it has great potential. I would definitely try this again, with a couple of changes...

Changes I would make:
* Cook it longer.
* Use thicker sauce. I did not spend a lot of time making sure the sauce was right before I used it and I added extra water to it because I didn't have enough to cover the pasta sufficiently.
* MORE CHEESE!!! Hey, I'm from Wisconsin! Maybe a little mozzarella grated on top. Yummy!!

Sesame Hot Bastard Noodles

Ah! Making these noodles was a test in patience. Not because they are so hard to make, they are actually quite easy. It was due to a series of unfortunate events. First, I spilled hot oil all over the stove and floor. It took nearly an hour to get it all cleaned up. Then I realized that I didn't have enough sesame seeds. Then, while I was toasting what little seeds I could find, I had to help my son chop the cilantro and I ended up almost burning the seeds. Then, when I put the peanut butter in the pan, it nearly burned too, even though I had the heat turned down to "warm". All while I was making the noodles I kept yelling "bastard" so my husband SSB suggested that would be a good name for them. I wasn't sure how they would turn out considering all the problems, but they were NUMMY!!

• 1 lb spaghetti
• 1 TBS sesame seeds
• 1 TBS sesame oil
• 1 TBS peanut butter, smooth or crunchy
  
• 2 TBS chopped chives
• 3 cloves minced garlic
• 2-3 TBS soy sauce
• 1 TBS lime juice
• 4 TBS chopped cilantro
• 1/16 - 1/8 tsp ground cayenne pepper
  
• 1/4 cup chopped cashews
• Salt and pepper
  

Toast sesame seeds. Turn down heat. Add a tablespoon of sesame oil (or just use what you have). Throw in minced garlic. When the garlic has turned translucent, add peanut butter. Sprinkle in cayenne pepper and add chopped chives. Stir in soy sauce and lime juice.

When everything is mixed into a nice sauce, remove from heat and add cilantro. Add the cooked, drained noodles and stir to coat them all with the sauce. Salt and pepper the whole thing. Top everything with cashew pieces and serve.

Shrimp Scampi Pasta

I love seafood, especially shellfish, and one of my favorite bug-o-the-sea is shrimp. My favorite preparation of shrimp is garlic and butter which in most of the U.S. is known as "scampi". To some in other countries "scampi" is actually the shrimp itself or a particular kind of shrimp - usually with claws like a mini lobster. (see difference below: top picture is shrimp, bottom picture is scampi)











I got a great deal on shrimp a few weeks back with the plan of just eating them with a shrimp sauce...until I saw a Red Lobster commercial with Shrimp Scampi in it. YUMMMY!! So I set out to learn how to make the stuff myself.

Shrimp is sold in number per pound. The less shrimp you get per pound the more expensive the shrimp. Some argue that the smaller the shrimp (the more shrimp per pound) the more flavorful the shrimp is. My shrimp was 80/100, which is small, but was perfect for pasta.

Shrimp Scampi is just garlic, butter, a little olive oil if you like, salt and parsley. Very simple recipe. If you want to eat it just on its own, you will want to clarify the butter. I haven't figured out how to do that yet, hence the pasta.

• 1 lb raw shrimp
• 1 large bulb garlic
• 1 stick butter
• 1/8 cup parsley
• sea salt
• 1 lb pasta

Heat a pan over low heat. Throw the butter in the pan and monitor the heat carefully, you want the butter to melt, not burn. Mince the garlic and throw that in with the butter.

You can also throw in the salt at this point. I use sea salt because I like the flavor of it. It is far less harsh and much more layered than regular table salt.

While this is melting, start a pot of water for the pasta. I just used spaghetti, because that is what I had. You could use what ever you have. You'll want to put a little olive oil and salt in the water. The salt brings out the flavor in the pasta and the oil keeps the pasta from sticking.

Only put the pasta in once the water is boiling and keep the water boiling until the pasta is done. A huge mistake that people make when making pasta (besides picking yucky brands: I prefer Barilla brand pasta. It cooks up perfectly and has a great, fresh flavor) is that the water isn't hot enough. That, and they over cook the pasta. Pasta should be cooked until it's almost done. It will continue to cook after you take it off the heat. When the pasta is getting near done, you should periodically pull a piece out and bite into it to see where it's at. You want to take it off the heat and drain it when there is just a tiny bit of bite left in the pasta, especially for this recipe since you will be adding the pasta to the shrimp pan for the last minute or so of cooking time.

Once the butter is melted, turn the heat to medium and throw in the shrimp. Frozen is fine, no need to thaw first.

A huge mistake that people make when cooking seafood is over-cooking it. When the seafood is raw, it is translucent. You want to cook it until it has just turned opaque. Over-cooking seafood makes it tough. Perfectly cooked seafood should be tender.

Once the shrimp has just turned opaque, throw in the parsley and drained pasta (assuming that the pasta is finished cooking by now - you might want to cook your pasta ahead of time to be sure that it is ready by this point in the cooking). Mix everything well and cook for another minute or so to mix the flavors.

Serve immediately, which shouldn't be a problem because you are probably starving by now!! And believe me, this tastes even better than it looks! ::drool::

The shrimp image was borrowed from www.scampirestaurant.com
The scampi image was borrowed from www.chartingnature.com

Easy Veggie Lasagna

Lasagna was always one of the three dishes that my mother made that were not only edible, but were the best I ever tasted. I hardly ever make it because it seems so difficult. As I was thinking of possible zucchini recipes though, I thought that lasagna would be a perfect try.

• 10 lasagna noodles
• 12 oz cottage cheese
• 7 oz ricotta
• handful Parmesan cheese
• handfull Romano cheese
• 3-5 oz spinach, fresh or frozen
• 2 eggs
• 2-4 cloves garlic
• 6 tomatoes
• 3-4 TBS Italian seasoning
• 2 cup sliced mushrooms
• 8-10 oz shredded mozzarella
  
• 1 med zucchini
• Salt - garlic or sea salt
  

As I boiled 10 lasagna noodles in oiled and salted water, I mixed 12 ounces of cottage cheese, 7 ounces ricotta, a handful of Parmesan, and a handful of Romano in a large bowl. Add 3-5 ounces of spinach. I used frozen (squeeze it dry) but I think that I would use fresh next time since I wasn't impressed with the flavor of the frozen spinach. Mix in two eggs and set this aside. Preheat the oven at 350 degrees.

Heat a pan with some olive oil, one or two tablespoons. Chop up a couple cloves of garlic. Add to the hot pan- you do not want the pan so hot that the garlic turns brown, just enough to cook it. Dice six or so tomatoes. Add those to the pan. Add three or four tablespoons of Italian seasoning and a good sprinkling of garlic salt (or other salt. Sea salt? You know how much I like sea salt, mmmm...).

As the sauce cooks down, slice up a medium size zucchini into 1/8-1/4 inch slices. If you like mushrooms you can slice some (I used portabella since I had some leftover). Remove the noodles from the heat even if they are not cooked all the way (in fact you probably only want them cooked halfway). Rinse them under cold water and separate.

When the sauce is thick, spread some of it in an oiled cake or lasagna pan. Put in a layer of noodles, then a layer of cheese mix, then noodles, then a layer of the raw zucchini slices and the mushrooms (if you are using them) topped with tomato sauce, another layer of noodles, the rest of the cheese mix, a layer of noodles, and top with the remainder of the tomato sauce. Top the whole thing with grated mozarella.

Bake in the oven for about an hour. My husband is not a big vegetable fan, but he liked this. He even ate leftovers- that's rare. I made mine half with mushrooms and half without (my husband doesn't like mushrooms). My son ate until the mushroom side was completely gone.

Rosemary Basil Chicken with Spaghetti

This is one of my very own recipes that I made when I needed something quick for dinner. Fast and yummy chicken pasta.

• 1lb boneless, skinless chicken breast
• 1 lb pasta
• 2 cloves garlic
• 3-5 medium tomatoes
  
• rosemary, fresh or dried
• feta (optional)
  
• basil, fresh or dried
• olive oil
  
• sea salt
  

The best way to chop chicken is while it is partially frozen. It's more like chopping celery than like chopping over-ripe tomatoes. If your chicken isn't frozen, make sure you have a sharp knife.

While I was defrosting my frozen chicken(about two minutes on defrost in the microwave), I started a pan of water for the pasta. I chose spaghetti because we had just bought some. You could use any plain pasta. I always put salt and oil in the water. They help heat the water faster, season the pasta, and they help keep the noodles from sticking to each other.

I heated up another pan, my cast iron fry pan, of course. Once it was hot, I put in about two tablesoons of extra virgin olive oil (cause you only live once) . While that was heating up I chopped up the still mostly frozen chicken into one inch cubes. You can chop them up however you like. I made sure that the pan was good and hot before throwing in the chicken. This sears the outside to keep the juices inside, plus it makes it taste better. Start stirring right away to make sure that no side gets over-cooked and all sides get seared fairly evenly.

Once the chicken cubes are fully seared, turn down the heat to about medium. Make sure that there is still moisture in the pan to keep the chicken from getting dry. Add a little water if you have to. Mince two cloves of garlic and add to the chicken. Grind up half a tablespoon of rosemary and throw that in. Add about a tablespoon of basil- or more if you like. Add a couple of big pinches of sea salt (or regular salt, or garlic salt, whatever). I like sea salt because regular table salt is too harsh for my tastes, and sea salt gives the food a nice flavor.

The pasta water should be ready by now. Add the pasta, stir, reduce the heat slightly, and cover.

Dice up the tomatoes into thick chunks. Throw them into the chicken pan. I never peel tomatoes. Peeled tomatoes are for wusses. The tomato peels add a nice bright red garnish to the dish. Cook the mix down until the tomatoes make a pseudo sauce. Add a little black pepper if you like. I did.

The pasta should be done, or at least when it is done, drain and add to chicken mix. OR you can do it the lazy Sylvana way- just tong the pasta out of the pan you cooked it in right into the chicken mix pan. What's a little pasta water among friends, eh? Stir the whole thing together. For added zip, add a couple handfuls of feta cheese (good stuff, that feta). And serve.