Pasta anyone?

This is all Jaime Oliver's fault. I've caught his show a couple times now on Sunday evening with him gallivanting around Italy's countryside, getting cozy with the locals, them cooking for him, then him cooking for them.


In the last episode I saw, he made a wild boar ragu for the town's festival, and was entered into a pasta-making contest with many of the local grandmothers (nonnys?). So I thought, "Mmmmmm homemade pasta sounds good. If those grandmas can make it in the middle of town square, then I can certainly make it in the comfort of my own kitchen." Yeah.


The producers of the show edited out way more kneading and rolling time than I suspected.

Sam, my always-willing kitchen assistant.

Twisting our pseudo-fusilli.

And we were still working on it when Andy came home from school!

And still twisting.

All finished, finally. Those grandmas must have MASSIVE forearm and back muscles. I was sore the next day.

And paired with the homemade ragu. Cow rather than wild boar in this case, but VERY tasty.

The noodles turned out too thick despite my efforts to make the sheet of pasta dough as thin as possible. If I attempt this again, I think I'll invest in one of those crank pasta-thinner gadgets. They were tasty, just too thick. But rest assured, I didn't let ONE piece of pasta go to waste.