One Local Summer Week 3!

This week for our local meal I was finally able to take something from my garden. It was very satisfying to run up the stairs and pick my first green pepper! Of course, if I had left it on much longer obviously it would have been bigger, but I just couldn't wait anymore! I also used some of the basil. I have been picking basil about every couple of days off my little basil plant, it seems to enjoy growing, and I am certainly enjoying eating it!







What One Local Summer is allowing me to do is be more creative with my meals. I have said before that I love cooking, so to have to figure out what to make with what is available...well it is interesting to say the least. I have baked biscuits, bread, and a chicken. This week? I decided I would try my hand at making pasta. I mean, how hard can it be? Some flour, and some eggs, check and check. I had both of those local, eggs from Monmouth and flour from King Arthur in VT. I am still using up the last of my VT flour, and then will be buying the "Maine milled" flour that is at the health food store. I put the ingredients into my lovely green kitchen aid mixer (my favorite appliance by far, if only for the color) not quite sure what would come out.





I made the dough, and realized I now needed to roll it out with a rolling pin, or put it through the pasta attachment...it was at this point that I realized that I had neither...so what did I do? Well, being oh so creative, I just stretched and stretched the dough...yeah...and then I attempted to cut the dough with a butter knife...we are still unpacking the kitchen stuff :-P





The above is what I came up with for pasta...I named it heathernguine. Although from the picture it appears more like funnel cake with confectioners sugar...



I then let my heathernguine sit while I made sauce. I chopped up some local tomatoes, Backyard Beauties, and put them in a sauce pan with some non-local olive oil and garlic, let it cook down and simmer. While that was simmering, I browned my organic and local hot sausage from Snafu Acres with my fresh picked green pepper and some hot pepper flakes (non-local). Then I put the sausage mixture in with the tomatoes...it was at that point I realized even if the pasta sucked I could totally eat the tomatoes and sausage...yum!






The above is the final meal, with Gritty's to wash it down with :-) Overall it got the "my favorite meal ever" award from Matt, and that makes me happy. Now...the next time I make pasta...I will have a roller...or better yet...the kitchen aid pasta attachment :-)