Crank it baby

Mike posted about our weekend and so I will limit this to the food. I was inspired by the amazing manicotti we had at Angela's (my PI) over Easter to make my own pasta. [I also wanted to learn so I can finally make my own ravioli.] So from this taste bud enlightenment, the manual pasta maker was purchased (thank you Bed Bath and Beyond). But I couldn't just make pasta. No. I decided to try making crab cakes as well (not following a particular recipe -as usual). All this new food making was so exciting that I was crushed, CRUSHED, when Frank's ran out of ricotta salata (for my eggplant and ricotta pasta dish) I was forced to make red sauce with red wine, sausage, eggplant and roasted red peppers.

But back to the pasta-
Mike came home early enough to be my assistant and I put him to cranking duty. We made the dough out of semolina durham wheat and eggs. The process was a lot of fun- especially bringing out the drying rack for our pasta sheets. The crab cakes turned out great. The chipolte peppers made it a bit spicy and robust. And I made so much that I froze some away, which I think I will use as my stuffing for ravioli. For dessert, I made dark chocolate and peanut dipped Granny Smith apples.

Pics are up- there are no pics of Mike rolling out the pasta because he had no shirt on while doing this and it made all the pics look...wrong. [Not that I look any better.]