Homemade Pasta!

I went to a cooking demonstration the other day at Bessie's Farm Goods here in Freeport.  The cooking demo. turned into more of a cooking class and boy did I have fun!   Pasta.  have you ever made homemade pasta?  I haven't and was eager to learn more. 

The demo. was by Chris Toy who, I found out, has alot of videos on Youtube about all sorts of cooking!  I was thrilled to talk with him.

Here are some picture from the event.  

People are starting to gather for the demo....

Here is one of the guest learning to make up some pasta dough with instructor Chris Toy.  He showed us how to make it by hand and in a food processor.

We used farm fresh eggs, that you can buy at Bessie's.  Pasta is only flour and egg, that's it!

These are 2 balls of pasta dough, all ready to roll.   The red-ish one is red because we added a bit of tomato paste, the green is fresh spinach!

Here Chirs is feeding the pasta through the rollers to flatten it and make it thin.  This is done several times and you adjust the rollers so each time (or two) you can make it thinner and thinner.  He let us do it too.  We all had a chance to make the dough and make our own pasta!  It was awesome!

The pasta goes through a final roller where it is cut into the familiar strips!  Here it is drying on a rack.  You can dry it fully and store it for later or cook it right away.  We cooked it right away and enjoyed a wonderful lunch.

Here is a bowl of the spinach pasta.  Look at the beautiful color!  The texture of the fresh pasta is wonderful too.  Chris had 2 sauces he made up quickly for the pasta and they simmered while we created the pasta itself.  A tomato sauce with garlic, onion and tomatoes and a white sauce with butter, mushrooms and ricotta.  Kathy (in the orange below holding the bowl) wanted to skip the sauce and try her pasta naked. 

I didn't expect this...we also learned how to make tortellini!  Here, we took the sheets of pasta dough and instead of putting them through the rollers, we cut out circles with a biscuit cutter.  Then added a filling of ricotta, Parmesan and spinach (the filling is in the red bowl below).  We learned to fold and seal them.   We made tortellini!

They were amazing! 

Of course, now I want my own pasta maker and want to make fresh pasta for everyone I know.  It was such fun and soo easy.    You can find lots of Chris Toy's videos for all sorts of different dishes on Youtube.com.  Here is a link to the video he made about pasta.

http://www.youtube.com/user/cmtoy?blend=2&ob=1#p/u/1/facYgYysYCE

And Bessie's has lots of other classes you can attend. 

Find them on FaceBook: 

http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Bessies-Farm-Goods/102232376482567?sk=info

Their website:

http://bessiesfarmgoods.com/

or call the shop: 

207 865-3747

Bessie's Farm Good

33 Litchefield Road

Freeport, ME