Mama Mia!

It's been an interesting week for kitchen projects this week.  We officially have local whole wheat flour that Four Star Farms has been growing, milling and selling at our Co-op and favorite farm stand, Hager's.  Because of this luck, I started figuring out all the things made from wheat that get shipped hundreds of miles to us, and have been researching how to make these things myself instead.  Essentially saving barrels of fossil fuels and being healthier for us.  With that said, the first 2 things I wanted to try was bread (obviously) and pasta.

The first one started off as what was suppose to be the easiest bread recipe, "No Knead Bread".   I followed the directions and in the morning went to check on the dough and it was a watery gross mess, I thought it might have resembled sour dough starter if I had ever seen it before.  Not being discouraged I decided to add some more of our local flour and give it a go anyways.  But I am not a masochist, so I decided to make a mini loaf and use the rest of the messed up dough for home made naan.

We cooked this stuff on the grill because it was 85 degrees out, and the naan tastes better that way.  As you can see the naan was a success.  (It's pretty hard to screw up unleavened bread)

We cooked the mini loaf in a casserole pot on the grill as well (casserole pot recommended in recipe: grill was not).

It came out great!  What a relief to not have wasted all that flour and effort!

Tasted great with our homegrown cucumbers for lunch.

Now onto Project #2: Homemade Ravioli.  I just got a pasta maker and ravioli press.  They are awesome.  

So I figured I would whip up some raviolis with homemade filling...

Ironically making the homemade Ricotta was actually the easiest part.  Yikes!

I then proceeded to make a double batch of pasta dough, (why double you ask?  because I am an idiot!) and attempted to make thin sheets for the ravioli press.  This was a little frustrating...  I figured out that the local whole wheat flour wasn't the best flour to be trying this set-up with for the first time.  The dough just kept crumbling and I couldn't get any sheets that were bigger then 1/2 inch by 1/2 inch.  So, an HOUR and a HALF later, I finally started getting bigger sheets.  No, they were not big enough to cover the entire ravioli press, just big enough to make 3 (the press makes 12 at a time).

  

So, after I got a few with cracks in them from the excess filling (nowhere in the directions did it say anything about how much to fill these little guys with) I decided I should probably try some of these Olive Ricotta Whole Wheat Raviolis before I spent the next hour making more...

They were actually pretty good!  THANK GOD!  So I made a few more or I should say enough to have one dinner of them and froze the rest of the filling and dough.  

LESSON: Don't double a recipe until you know it will work!

In a moment of despair I made a Bow Tie pasta, just in case the Raviolis were destined for failure.

And the best part was the clean up....Yikes!

I will put a little more time into some research on this homemade pasta situation.  But I can't give up on the Four Star Farm's local wheat possibilities.