A year and a half later, we've tangled with the pasta maker only twice, both times with less than stellar results. Our pasta was dry, it didn't form into the pliable ball it was supposed to. Nevertheless, when I saw a ravioli making set at our local specialty shop, I had to have it. Today, while Kaitlyn was taking her afternoon nap, we decided to tangle with the pasta maker one more time with the ambitious plan of making ravioli. As it turns out, a lot of ravioli.
Our cookbook says the general rule for pasta is 1 cup of flour and 1 egg per person. So I thought six cups of flour to make enough for us tonight and a ravioli dinner for friends one night. Six eggs didn't even begin to hold together the flour, so we added a seventh. Then, an eighth. By this time I was already sick of kneading the dough and it wasn't even sticking together yet. "I hate pasta!" I declared. I had also decided that perhaps I could live with the fall-apart ravioli we always got from the store.
Keith came along with his apron on and said, "Let Papa Pasta give it a try." Considering that his kitchen repertoire consists of spaghetti sauce, I was a little skeptical. Not long ago I also would have been mad about him trying to take over in what I consider my domain but tonight I poured a glass of wine and sat down to watch him work. Besides, the baby might wake up soon.
After five more minutes of kneading, the dough still wasn't doing anything at all so we looked to Youtube for help. Surely, someone out there must know how to do this! The first video we watched recommended an egg-flour ratio of almost 2:1! That solved our first problem. The next bit of advice was to drink more wine. That solved our second problem.
Finally, after the ninth egg, we had dough that we could work with! Papa Pasta had succeeded where I surely would have given up. In fact, by this time I was playing with the baby in the nursery, apron discarded and forgotten. Through the rest of the night, we tag teamed with the baby care and pasta making. I made up a pumpkin ricotta filling, then he perfected the art of creating paper-thin sheets of perfect looking pasta. I served up our first batch in a brown butter sage sauce while he fed her dinner. There has never been so much teamwork in our house!
All together we made 52 ravioli and three servings of spaghetti while going through Kaitlyn's entire night time routine and cleaning up a dough covered kitchen. I have no idea where the name Papa Pasta came from but it's going to stick, and I might just give up control of the kitchen a little more often. Not only did I get a break but Keith was really proud of all that we accomplished. At the very least, fresh pasta will now be a staple on our menu.
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