fresh pasta

For Christmas, my mom got me the pasta attachment for my KitchenAid mixer. I was stoked. Completely. We got home last night, and tonight I made my first batch of linguine (or fettuccine, I'm not totally sure). All I can say is, it's a good thing pasta is just flour, salt, water and oil, because I'm going to need to do some trial and error to get it right. Uncooked, it was v. promising, but upon cooking for a mere two minutes, it turned into a mushy mess.

Chris and I think we pinpointed the error: I was following directions for a hand-cranked pasta machine, which doesn't get the pasta as thin as my motorized one. Upon further investigation, we realized that I should have perhaps/most certainly rolled this pasta twice as thick to make the linguine/fettuccine. Until I get it right, I think I'll just be tossing the pasta with butter and cheese, because the biggest disappointment was that I had splurged on shiitake mushrooms for a sauce, which lost most of its charm after being tossed with what turned out to be mush.

However! I am undeterred. The brain learns better from mistakes rather than just getting something right the first time through sheer luck. Stay tuned.