And . . A Pasta Maker

Do not judge! Hear me out. I love making homemade pasta and I make it probably 8 – 10 times a year but . . it is super time consuming to make it with my little hand crank pasta maker. I do have an attachment to make it with my Kitchen Aid but my KA is on its last leg and I do not want to hasten its demise so I try to use it only when it’s the only option. I no longer knead any bread with it. There are some things the KA does a whole lot better than the Bosch so I’m only using it for those things (whipping cream, cakes – the more liquid things).

I can only make spaghetti, and flat type pasta with the two pasta gizmos I have. I will still have to use one of those for ravioli.

A pasta maker was not something I had been thinking about at all. Yesterday a group popped up on my FB page – one of those things .. you might like this group. The only post that showed on that “ad” was about 8 trays of different pasta a lady had made with her new pasta maker. WHAT?? There were all kinds of shapes. There’s a small local restaurant in town and the guy’s mom loves to make pasta so she makes all the pasta. When we go there, I keep looking at that pasta wondering how on earth she makes that kind of pasta . . now I know!

I spent most of yesterday afternoon looking at different pasta makers and dies. Oh, my goodness . . this could be worse than cross stitching or knitting but at least Vince will get some yummy meals. The good thing for me/sad thing for Vince is that he’s really just as happy with a jar of storebought spaghetti sauce as he is with homemade sauce that has simmered for hours. We both love homemade pasta. I love a buttery, garlic sauce or a creamy, cheesy sauce. Now, I can make pasta, open a jar for him (I keep meatballs in the freezer), add some meatballs to his sauce, add butter/garlic or cream/cheese sauce to mine and we’ll both be happy.

This is the maker I ordered (affiliate link). It’s another of those Black Friday Deals. This place is the real problem. Check out all the dies they have! There are shapes (dog paws, Christmas trees, butterflies) and then regular pasta shapes – shells, orzo, bucatini . . I put everything in my cart that I loved, then about had a stroke when I saw the total and there’s a sale there too. I took out half, then took out half again, then took out a few more. Even though it comes from Italy, some of the people in the FB group said they ordered from Amazon and Pastidea and received their order from Pastidea before the Amazon order. I can only hope that happens. We aren’t celebrating Thanksgiving with Chad’s family til Saturday so I would LOVE spend Thanksgiving Day making pasta. The machine should be here by then but . . maybe not. If it’s here, I can use one of the dies that came with it and make pasta.

I told Vince . . I’m ordering something else and you’re probably not going to be happy til you see what I make with it. He was guessing and he never guessed a pasta maker. Then I said “What do you call Italian dollars?” (The die company is in Italy.) He said “Now you’re ordering from Italy?” I said . . just thinking about it.

I think he won’t be happy when he sees that I’ve ordered another kitchen gadget but he will be so happy to see how much homemade pasta I make since it’s about 10 to 15 minutes start to finish and I will be doing it on the countertop instead of on the table and it has to be less messy than running those sheets of pasta through the extruder 5 or 6 times with that hand crank machine.

No more shopping . . at least not for myself!