Best I Gained 2000 Experience Points on Saturday

I felt a notion building up inside of me all week.  I tried to suppress it until the very end, but couldn't.  The notion was to finally use the cavatelli maker I got for Christmas.  The notion was to home make myself some pasta for the first time.

I followed the recipe for Ricotta Cavatelli in Brown Sage Butter with Hot Sausage from the Frankies Spuntino cookbook as closely as possible.  It's been a while since I've mentioned the Frankies cookbook around here, how I wish this book were my life, how I wish I lived in the recipes and the list of necessary home kitchen items.

As I do not have any sort of stand mixer device I made my handmade pasta with my hands using the "well" method:

Put my flour on a cutting board:



Made a well in my flour mound:



Beat this egg and ricotta together:



Poured them into the well:



Then I was supposed to gently stir the egg/ricotta mixture and draw in the flour.  Instead I wound up casting my egg and cheese out into the flour.  I was so upset, I thought the whole thing was ruined.  I wanted to throw it out and sit down on the floor and cry.  But then I thought, "No.  I must go on.  I must at least find out if this is salvageable."  So I started pushing it together with my hands.



Amazingly, I was able to make a dough ball.  I thought it was so cute!



Look how you can barely tell it apart from my cauliflower.  Ahem.  I said you can Barely Tell It Apart.  Don't argue.



Then I cut my dough baby into four equal pieces that I'd later turn into flat snakes.  Tapeworms, really.



Then I got out my cavatelli maker.  After a little confusion involving the handle being on backwards, I started cranking.  And I could not believe it, but the dough went through the machine and came out cavatellis.



Look at these guys!  I made them!



I made ALL of them!  Looking at all my little cavatellis, I really understood the love a parent must feel for their new born child.

Then I boiled them.



Isn't it so sloppy when people post pictures that they forgot to rotate?

Meanwhile, while all this was happening I was also boiling sausages,



Then browning sausages,

Then cooking butter and sage with the crusty sausage leftovers,

I was also roasting cauliflower but don't have any pictures from inside the oven.

And when everything seemed done I mixed it all together,

And Blammo!  Lunch!  Dinner!  Breakfast*!

Broek liked them.  So did Derrin.  And me.  That's three people that liked the cavatelli, how many more do you need?  And as much as I like that the cavatelli tasted good and people liked them, I was most excited about having learned how to do something new.  I gained a new skill!  Now I daydream about taking my cavatelli machine with me on every trip I take.  If you have me over, I will make pasta at your house!  Or cabin!  Or boss's summer home!  That's my new thing now.  I travel around and make pasta for people.

Also, the recipe is really spot on.  Follow it as closely as possible and everything comes out tasting exactly how I remember it tasting at Frankies.

*Breakfast?  Yeah, warmed some up (p.s. I know you're not supposed to have leftover pasta but I did, okay?) and put a fried egg on it.  It was the right thing to do, the yolk was right at home on all the cavatellis.

Having cranked these guys out, there's two other notions building up in my brain: To finally make the Frankies meatballs or to try making the Torrisi Jamaican curry cavatelli from Lucky Peach #1.  What will happen?  Hopefully I'll be able to tell you next week.