HOMEMADE lasagna !!!

My lasagna is always "homemade". I boil the macaroni, make the meat sauce, etc....However, this time I actually MADE THE PASTA. I used flour and eggs and olive oil and salt and kneaded and kneaded and kneaded until I had REAL pasta dough!

I cut the ball in 4 pieces then ran each piece through the hand cranked pasta machine (that you can't wash with water..hmmm..just wipe off..still trying to get it clean enough for me). I started on the thickest setting, then gradually went thinner. Then I put the sheets of pasta in boiling water for 3 minutes and began layering my lasagna. Michael took a photo of the lasagna.

It was a new experience and very cool and I am not afraid to make pasta anymore :)

Last night was beef in wine. A rib eye roast marinated in an entire bottle of Chianti Classico (I nearly cried pouring the whole bottle over a piece of meat) with onion, carrot, celery and garlic. It sat overnight in the fridge, I browned it in my favorite pot (a Le Creuset that Denise gave me). Meanwhile, I boiled the wine sauce (with veggies removed) until it was halved, poured that over the meat, let it cook to 140 degrees (rare). I deglazed the sauce, added rosemary and potato starch (as THE BOOK told me to) but not too much. And Voila, rare rib eye roast beef with Chianti sauce. Not bad cooking expeditions this week.

Tomorrow, Michael and I will be in the Atlantic Beach traffic court (I got a ticket for No Standing when Michael was flying a kite on the beach a few weeks ago, and I WAS SITTING IN THE CAR). The guy didn't see me, said I should have had the radio on (as if it were my fault he couldn't see me sitting in the front seat with my face in the sun!) Anyhoo, that means no cooking Wednesday night, but Thursday is Pork Shepherd's style. We'll see how that goes.

Keep dry :)