Problems in Paradise

Sunday we went for a boat ride out on the river. It was a beautiful summer Sunday. We loaded up the boat with our wakeboard and were on our way. . . until there was a funny odor coming from the engine.

Oh no, smoke...at the back of the boat and then there was a heavy clunking sound and the boat slowed wayyyyyy down. Boating Bliss and Blips are just another part of life.
And, luckily we were able to tootle back to the dock. Now we've got our fingers crossed that it won't cost too much to repair. :(

How to Make Homemade Pasta Without a Machine in Five Minutes

I wanted to make homemade pasta from scratch. I hate feeding my family unnecessary preservatives. Plus, when I was looking at a package of pasta, I thought, "Wow! It just looks like stale strips of dehydrated flour." And that's all it is.

I figured there had to be a better way. But without a pasta maker, I felt forced to eat store bought stuff. My husband said, "Let's run to Sears and see how much a pasta attachment would be for your Kitchen Aid mixer." But, at $179.00 (on sale) I wasn't going to buy the attachment just to make pasta. Still...I thought, how hard can it be...?

So, I looked up a couple recipes and went to work. I chose a mixture of whole wheat flour and regular unbleached flour.

Here's all you need to make homemade pasta without a pasta machine:

A Mixing bowl, a knife, a rolling pin and a cookie sheet for drying your pasta

Ingredients:

4 cups of flour, (it can be a mixture of any type of flour you like)
1/2 cup of oil olive
4 eggs
1/4 to 1/2 cup water

Here are a few short video clips, plus I've included photos of the process (in case you don't want to watch all the videos).

It's super simple and only took me about 5 minutes from start to finish to make the pasta. Partly because I was getting ready to go out on the river for a couple hours and didn't want to follow the recipe exactly. So my method is super quick.

Here's what I did:


Here's how to slice the dough easily into thin strips

After you've let it dry on a rack, you can cook the dough. Remember it won't need to cook as long as store bought pasta only a minute or two at a full boil - you don't want to overcook it or it will turn out mushy)

After the pasta has been cooked, this is what my whole wheat pasta looked like:


I used a mixer to make my pasta but you could do it by hand too. And this is a picture of all you need to make your pasta.

After you mix up the ingredients, you simply roll out the dough nice and thin

Then you roll the dough up like a jelly roll and slice the dough into long strips

This is what your sliced up strips will look like (they matched the color of my table :(

Then you unroll your strips of pasta and let them dry out for about an hour on a drying rack (or a cookie cooling rack)
I put my pasta on the stove to dry out

Honey Do

Sometimes I forget to stop and be thankful for all the good things in my life...like my husband. We've been married for over 28 years and sometimes I take him for granted and all the wonderful things he does.

He not only goes to work every day to support the family, he also puts a lot of time and energy into building things for us all: like these chairs, these planters, and even the deck. Plus, just look underneath the chairs, see all that old wood just waiting to be sanded down to "like" new and repurposed into more useful stuff?

It's so simple to just expect my husband to do it all. I'm just lucky he does :) and that he enjoys doing it in his spare time after coming home from working all day.

Now, I just have to give him my new list:

1) New tile in the shower;
2) Remodel the basement;
3) Wrap-around benches for the deck;
4) Green-house;
5) Garage;
6)
7)
8)
9)
10)

Just give me time, 10 won't be enough--not for long. It's a never-ending Honey-Do list.

How 'bout you...do you have a Honey-Do list...? What's on it?

Being Benched

My husband has always been a man of action. He played basketball all his life. But more than making baskets, he likes to use his hands to make benches.

He also likes to rescue things. . . like old wood from the landfills. He picks it up all the time. If a neighbor is remodeling, he willing takes the wooden waste off their hands and puts it back into another project, such as this one. He made this picket-fence bench for me years ago. But, when the wood started to rot, he simply replaced the slats and painted them pretty as new.

Repurposing an Old Light Fixture

Our old ceiling fan motor finally burnt out. My husband took it down and put up a new light fixture with a fan but I didn't want to just throw the old one into the landfill. Our local "dump" is full enough. So I started thinking, what could we do with that old metal and wood and glass?

The metal and wood I recycled but the glass votives I decided to repurpose. I washed them up and added tea-candles on the inside for a wonderful illuminary for outside.

How 'bout you, have you repurposed anything lately?

Have Your Cake and Eat it Too

So the Wise Old Owl says, "You CAN have your cake and eat it too." I just have to figure out how to do it all--without overcooking the cake.

You see, once again I was struck by the baking bug. . . Not good for my diet but so yummilicious for my fam, well it should have been. Unfortunately both cakes were a little over done. Not burnt - just dry. That is the definition of an overdone cake: "dry".

So many people tell me they don't like cake. The truth is they've just had bad cake. It doesn't have to be burnt to be bad, when it's dry--not burnt--it's just overdone cake. Those dried out slices of sin are actually overdone or they wouldn't be dry and you wouldn't be needing a glass of milk to wash it down. You'd want another piece of moist--melt-in-your-mouth fruity flavor.

Anyway, I was so busy preparing my cakes--from scratch--that I wasn't paying enough attention to the baking process. I was making a banana cake--which I have never had not turn out--well, never say NEVER 'cuz that day was today. The other cake was supposed to be a wonderful lemon poppy seed cake with a lemon and coconut buttercream frosting. The frosting was yummy--the cake--not so much, 'cuz like I said, it was overdone.

In fact, they both came out...disappointing. And with about 25 people coming to celebrate Luke's graduation, it was another one of my not so famous cake failures. Oh well, there's always tomorrow.

I guess my problem is, I just want it all...cute cakes that taste moist and, well, delicious 'cuz if I'm going to eat it, I want it to be worth those approximately hundred-thousand itsy-bitsy calories I'm going to need to run about 10 miles just to burn off and stay even.

But there's always tomorrow. (And remember, if you don't have a cake pan that is large enough for your cake, all you have to do is cover some cardboard or wood in aluminum foil and WAH-LAH wonderful serving tray for your cake ;)

Happy 4th of July Weekend!

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend full of food, family, friends and even fireworks!

Here's my fireworks in my garden.