Pasta Roller, Pantry, & Packing

As we start cleaning, packing, and moving stuff in order to get our apartment empty since our lease is up at the end of the month I broke out the pasta machine one last time before the dust collecting storage.  It's been nice having the challenge of using everything up but still trying to create that great meal out of dwindling pantry supplies that will not be restocked.

Tonight I made a simple tomato sauce with canned (that's right, Muir Glen organic fire-roasted) tomatoes, garlic, oregano, and a little red wine.  Oh yeah, a little of the extra virgin olive oil.

The pasta was pretty simple, a pinch of salt, cup and half flour, pour of oil, and a few eggs...when it starts coming together in little balls is a good sign just to smoosh it all together in a ball and let it rest in the fridge for about 15 minutes.  Roll it thru the pasta roller down to 2, my pasta roller goes from the high numbers to the low.  Our pasta roller at work goes from low to high, kinda crazy huh?!

Instead of going the simple (or hard?) way of rolling it thru the fettuccine or spaghetti cutter I cut 2-inch squares and finger egg-washed the edges of the square folding the sheets over some pan sauteed leftover spinach mixed with some shredded provolone cheese.   (I threw a quick fix of cajun seasoning in there too...just for good measure.)

Read the labels on your spice mixes if you have them, usually no matter what they call it there are a few that have all the flavors you want.  Like Cajun seasoning, it usually has some salt, pepper, cayenne, garlic, onion, etc...and 'other' assorted spices.  I usually don't buy spice mixes because I have so much of everything I can make about any mix I want.  But there are a few that seem to be good quick solutions to bump up a little flavor.

Anyway...Maybe you remember a few posts ago about Konop Meat Market in Wisconsin and how my mother-in-law bought up a bunch of meat for me?  Well, I oven-roasted them in foil.  They were called Swiss & Mushroom Brats (totally pork) and maybe you're saying they didn't really go with the pasta and sauce...but you can't tell my stomach or my wife that.  We are sitting pretty with a smile on our faces.

Last but not least, I had some sweet white wine I wanted to use up so I poached a few fresh pears I had with a little cinnamon sugar mixture (I also wanted to get rid of).  Made a little caramel-type sauce with the leftover juices and poured them over the pears which were on top of some puff pastry (that I also had in the freezer begging to be used).  Yes, it could have been better but nobody cared to go get the ice cream so we had to suffer and eat it like it was.

Kinda made me feel like a 'Door Knock Dinner' success...what is that?  It's an old Food Network show where...oh never mind.