While pasta continues to dominate the food served on our dinner table, the multitude of ways it may be prepared is a real bliss. Today we opted for a simple mix of spinach pasta with chanterelles. I've always thought mushroom dishes were quite complex and time-consuming, but it was a very nice surprise to find out how wrong that assumption was. The dish I served tonight could have been ready in less than half an hour, have it been not for me making green pasta from scratch. I made green (spinach) pasta - the recipe has been posted in the post Pasta Frenzy Continues , but it may well be served with packet pasta to cut down on preparation time. As I mentioned, the sauce is both easy and quick to make, plus there's virtually nothing that could go wrong with it. You need: 300 g chanterlles a pot of cream fresh basil leaves fresh oregano leaves fresh parsley salt and pepper 1 tbsp cooking oil grated Parmesan Rinse and chop chant...

I've bragged about making colourful pasta recently, today the more interesting variety I've been making: pasta decorated with leaves. It's absolutely gorgeous - both visually and flavour-wise! Might seem a bit on a time-consuming side, but I guess if I've got time to make my own pasta, adding a few bits (or a sparkle, if you like) to it is not too much to ask for. The ingredients are identical to the plain plain pasta recipe: 200 g plain flour 2 eggs a pinch of salt a handful of leaves (basil, oregano, mint, rucola, chervil or parsley) Mix the ingredients in a large bowl and knead the pasta until smooth and elastic. Cover with cling film and leave in a fridge for 30 minutes to rest. Roll it as thin as possible - this is when the pasta maker comes handy - I don't honestly think I'd be able to roll it as thin as it does. I roll it through all the setting (from 1 to 9 on mine). Each time you need to get 2 similar sheets of pasta. Place one on a ...

If you think it's all about the sauce, and pasta is used merely to bulk the dish, you couldn't be more wrong. I've advanced my pasta making to decorative varieties. :-) First off, the colourful pasta. So far I've mastered the white shade (basic pasta dough), green and red - so a pasta dish in Italian coluors was inevitable. Due to the proportions, we ended up with enough food for 3 meals (ravioli), and at least 5 servings of soup pasta! :-) Red pasta: 200g of plain flour 1 egg 75 g cooked beetroot a pinch of salt extra flour for dusting Blend the beetroot in a food processor to a smooth paste. Add flour, salt and egg, mix all the ingredients into a dough, adding more flour if too sticky, which often happens with this type of dough as beetroots tend to be really moist. . Knead for a couple of minutes, until it's smooth and flexible. Cover the dough with cling filma and put it into the fridge for about 30 minutes to rest. Roll and cut into desired shap...

I got a pasta maker for my birthday and we seem to be eating nothing but pasta since! Though the every first attempt was far from successful, I quickly sussed it out. The fact that I naturally tend to start with the most complex things, didn't help here, either. Instead of taking baby steps and making simple spaghetti or tagliatelle first, I had a go at making ravioli :-) Well, I ate my humble pie and next time I made simple soup pasta. Successfully! :-) It reminded my of the childhood days when my gran would make a delicious soup with home-made pasta when I stayed with her. Of course, I keep hearing questions, like: why bother making something you can buy in every single shop? Well, I bother as the home-made pasta is incomparably better! :-P To make basic pasta dough you need: 1 cup of flour 1 egg a pinch of salt a dash of olive oil water if the dough is to dry more flour - if the dough is to sticky, also to sprinkle on the worktop The proportions above are enough fo...