Pressure Cooking
On Tuesday I was excited that I was going to have time to test the new KitchenAid Pasta Press attachment. I have made pasta before with my KA pasta roller/cutter attachment and love it, but this makes rigatoni, macaroni in two sizes, fusilli, bucatini, and spaghetti.
I made some pasta dough using the recipe in the Use and Care Guide and started playing. I mean working. This is so much fun! It is easy, it works, the storage for the pasta plates is perfect. I made some of each type of pasta and had some rigatoni for dinner. It's too bad my husband was at his normal weekly meeting, but I enjoyed the pasta.
I remembered to take some pictures of the attachment, the process and the finished product.
This is a very new attachment and I did not get to keep it for now. I passed it on to a fellow personal chef and KitchenAid product specialist Wendy so she could play. I mean so she could also work hard learning the new attachment and testing it to gain product knowledge. If LuAnn wonderful KA boss in Pittsburgh reads my blog I want her to know how hard we all work.
I highly recommend purchasing this now, or at least adding this to your gift wish lists. I did not eat all of the pasta that I made, so I dried it a little, placed it in plastic bags and tossed them in the fridge. I just looked at them and they are still perfect, not bits of mush.
I cooked for my client yesterday and she invited us to the lake to sail on Saturday. I thanked her and said that I had volunteered to help someone, hadn't heard yet, but if that didn't happen we would start to redo the office. A big job requiring moving computers, maybe setting up office in the dining room
I heard yesterday from the person I'll be working for. I'm not sure exactly what I'll be doing yet. I leave tomorrow, I will be working hard, on a shrimp boat, in the sun, getting dirty and smelly and will be making nothing for pay. I will take pictures, may be able to post through Facebook, will write about the weekend when I get home on Monday.
My husband and the cats will be here enjoying the holiday weekend doing something. Probably not starting to redo the office.
So I'm back from Pittsburgh. I left last Thursday morning and came back last night. I drove because I enjoy driving. I stayed over Thursday night since there was a huge thunderstorm in West Virginia and I was tired. I decided it was better to rest since I estimated I had 3 hours left to drive. Good decision.
I got to my sister's about 10 Friday morning and yes I brought the laptop so I could blog and check email. No, it did not work. I used my sister's laptop to keep up with email but decided to vacation from blogging. Since we were having technical difficulties we decided we needed food and went to Carl's for burgers, fish and zucchini. I need to go there every time I visit. Luckily my sister Connie likes it and my sister Cathy was there too and approved. Once we finished lunch we knew we needed dessert for later in the evening so went to Moio's. Another must.
No website for Carl's, it is really not very fancy but they are in the process of adding a deck. They were working on it Friday. There is a website for Moio's and is a complete contrast to Carl's. Both very good though. We spent the evening visiting with neighbors and my niece and her fiance who stopped by after work. We had pizza, it was a pretty full day of eating.
Saturday my sisters and I decided to go to the Strip. My nephew had a birthday party to go to so we were on our own. We needed to get shrimp and steaks for dinner and whatever else we saw. Even though it was pouring, we all had rain slickers and were fine. We went to Penzey's and stocked up and we ate some more.
We decided on brunch at DeLuca's. There was still a short line at 12:30 but it's worth the wait. Again, not fancy but delicious! It's only open until 3 so keep that in mind. Again no website but I did get pictures.
We headed home to pick up bridesmaid's dresses and to get a quick nap. My sister Connie, who was the chauffer, then got us over to my niece's house where I cooked dinner with my nephew Jake. Cathy got good pictures and will send them. We had Linguine with Scampi, Roasted Asparagus, Garlic Bread, Salad and steaks on the grill. And cake - German Chocolate or Black Forest.
Sunday was the shower and my niece's friends came over early to get things ready. They left about 11 with my sister Connie, Connie told Cathy and me that we were responsible for getting Cristine to the shower. Not a problem since it was not a surprise, Cristine was picking us up and Cristine loves presents. The shower was beautiful. No games were played, we had lunch, cake, watched the gift opening and had themed basket raffles. The girls did a lot of work, my niece has great friends.
After the shower we headed back to Connie's to chat, relax, not eat, and plan the evening. We took some family pictures while we were still dressed from the shower. One with the 3 aunts and Cristine, one of Ryan and Cristine.
We didn't stay dressed very long because while I like animals, my sister really loves animals. Connie has 5 dogs, Cathy brought her dog and apparently I sat on the best chair in the house. I was swarmed.
We have 2 corgis, 1 big fluffy dog, 1 toy Pomeranian, 2 Corgi/Shih Tzu puppies. Connie claims this is her reading chair and this is normal. I didn't think we could all fit, but I was wrong. I should have gotten a new picture Friday night when Cristine brought her Shih Tzu and Corgi/Shih Tzu mix. I'm not sure 2 more would fit.
I left yesterday morning to make the drive back. The weather was nice and sunny and cool and I made it home in about 11 1/2 hours. I don't stop much while I drive. Now back to normal with only 3 cats.
It is a beautiful, sunny day here which is a great change from the rain. We've had storms, rain, grey skies, this morning is sun with blue skies.
I got a Mother's Day delivery on Friday when I got home from teaching. A large box was on the porch so I opened it immediately. A gorgeous bouquet of tulips from my step-daughter Beth, her husband Michael and grandson Matthew. Yes, I did take a picture and so far the cats have not snacked on the flowers.
I got home from teaching earlier than I thought. Big hugs to Cathy for letting me avoid the Friday traffic on 285. The class went well I think. We had 10 students and there was lots of hugging when they left Friday afternoon. They are on their way to a new life of personal cheffing! As usual we had an interesting group of students. Henry was a certified executive chef from Trinidad, Ken cooks on boats in the merchant marines, Jill is a mom of 4 children and got some interesting phone calls from home, we had a wide range of jobs and ages. Lots of fun and learning.
In addition to missing the Friday traffic nightmare, getting home early gave me time to get a shower since I had a party to go to. It was a kind of weird invitation. Monday at the grocery store a woman said "you cook for Dina". I said I had cooked for Dina but she was moving shortly to Maryland. The woman said "I know, I'm in her neighborhood and I'm having a going away party for her Friday night, do you want to come?" I thought that was so nice since we didn't know each other's names and had only met maybe twice at the grocery store.
We exchanged email and off we went on our day. I went to the party, it was a surprise, I took Polka Dot Bars, one of Dina's favorites and said goodbye to one of my favorite customers. Tina (that was the nice woman's name) said bring something Dina likes. I cooked for Dina for about 7 years, so that was easy!
Polka Dot Bars from Taste of Home
We didn't do much Saturday since I had been with so many people for several days. We did a little shopping, I need to make a Southern themed basket for a bridal shower. We may head to the mall again today.
We've been to church, the grocery store, I used my ebelskiver pan for breakfast with raspberry filling and I've made sure my bird feeders and water dishes are ready to go. Have a great day whatever you do!