My Favorite Tool

Before we went Feingold, I thought my working-mom perogotive was to serve some sort of prepared food with our meat and veggies for dinner.  Rice-a-roni, Country Crock mashed potatoes, Stove Top Stuffing.  Breakfasts and snacks were also all nicely prepared and packaged - Welch's Fruit Snacks, Quaker Granola Bars, Eggo waffles, Sun Chips.  Even after we made the switch to all natural, I spent my first Feingold shopping trip at Whole Foods, 45 minutes away from my house, searching the isles for approved brands of my favorite prepared foods. 

However some approved things just couldn't be found.  Like marshmallows.   For a family that loves camping (and need I say it - S'Mores!) we had to have marshmallows.  So I figured out how to make them myself, and I armed my kitchen with the tool to do it - my Kitchenaid Mixer.  From there I started baking from scratch:  cakes, cookies, granola bars, pies.  I learned it took no more time to bake from scratch than to bake from a box, as long as your kitchen is properly stocked with ingredients. . . and a Kitchenaid Mixer. 

From there I set out to make my own bread and my parents bought me my second most used item in the kitchen, my Cuisinart Bread Maker.  There is no comparison to homemade bread and my family eats it just as fast as I can make it.  Boy does the house smell good, too.  And when we found out that even approved yogurt triggers reactions for Ben, I learned how to make my own yogurt . . with my Tribest Yolife Yogurt Maker.  You would not believe how easy and how delicious it is. 

Then I took advantage of an after Christmas sale and bought my Cuisinart Elite Chopper Food Processer.  Man that thing grates cheese in about five seconds.  I have yet to scratch the surface on all the cool things that chopper can do.  My point is that by stocking my kitchen with the right ingredients and tools, I began to challenge myself to see what else I could make from scratch and how much better it would be than what we used to eat.  And now cooking from scratch is my passion.

But it's my newest gadget that I think I've fallen in love with.  A Christmas gift from my mom.  Yes, it's the pasta maker attachment for my Kitchenaid mixer.  Oh, how I love you, you pasta maker attachment, you.  It is as if our family was living in the dark, eating pasta from a box and having to cook it for EIGHT FULL MINUTES.  Well, no more.  For tonight, after trying it for the first time and making the best Fettucini this side of Wilton (ok, it may be the only fettucini served in Wilton I reckin'), we will never go back.  For in five minutes of dough prep, 20 minutes of rising, another 5 minutes to make the noodles, and 2 full minutes of cooking, we had fresh, soft, wonderfully long noodles for our Pasta Carbonara.  And life was good.

My Best Friend's Pasta Carbonara

1 lb pasta (use fresh, trust me)

3 eggs

3 tablespoons cream or milk

1/2 lb bacon, chopped and cooked

1 cup peas, cooked
1 cup freshly grated parmesean
salt and pepper

Cook pasta.  In a small bowl, lightly beat eggs and cream, salt and generous amounts of coarse black pepper.  When pasta is completely cooked, drain and transfer to the serving dish.  Immediately pour the egg mixture over the pasta and mix to completely coat the pasta.  The hot noodles cook the egg mixture (it's true!).  Add the bacon and peas and half the parmesean and toss to mix.  Use the remaining parmesean to sprinkle over each serving. 

Ben had three servings and said it's the best pasta he's ever had.  Here's what it looked like (I know, I should start dressing up if I'm going to blog this stuff, right?):