I have been playing in the kitchen this weekend and having a ball. It has also meant that Mum has been able to spend a fair bit of time on the computer organising a talk she is giving on her trip out west last year.
Saturday I made sugar biscuits to have play with icing.
Saturday night I listened to the Womadelaide 2008 live broadcast (and loved every single minute of it) whilst decorating those biscuits. I have wanted to go to Womad since 2001 or 2002 when I first saw brochures for it at the library, listening to it this year has just made me want to go 100 times more than I did before. There was just so many artists I enjoyed listening to. At the end of the night I had no regrets not going to see Tiger Army/Zombie Ghost Train with Matthew and his friends (which according to Matthew was an awesome show).
I learnt that so much of it is about getting the consistency of the royal icing just right. As I practice more though I know I will get the consistency better on the first time instead of adding more sugar because it is too runny and then adding more liquid because I made it too solid.
Saturday I also went to the shops and if I go to Chermside I normally tend to poke my head into the kitchenware sections of Myer and David Jones because you never know what might be on sale. Well when I went into Myer I saw a sign which said 30% off all accessories and in the little note below it said it included pasta machines. Well when I saw that they had Atlas machines on the shelf, I knew what I was buying! Ever since I returned the below par pasta machine I bought 16mths ago I have been keeping my eye out, for an Atlas on sale, you know to make the price a whole lot more appealing. So so happy to have a pasta machine again. It also just runs so smooth.
Today I made Ralphs chocolate cake to take to work for a birthday tomorrow and of course I made Pasta! and Mum took some photos.
Pasta is all about the rolling, that blob of pasta would probably go through the machine about 25 times before it is cut, it makes it this most beautiful sheet of pasta.
I decided to be silly and make very very very long noodles. The first three runs I made as spaghetti and the final run I made as fettuccine. Typically of course you would cut the long pasta strip into 12-20″ strips before cutting it but hey why not?
The final stage, dusting the the fresh pasta with flour before packing it up to pop in the freezer.
Now it is time for bed and the start of another work week.