Kicking off the New Year with Pasta and Bread.

Homemade bread and pasta to start off the New Year? Carb overload? No problem here, I’ll just jump on the bicycle and burn it off. Last year I pedaled 3,300 miles so I don’t think a little carb overdose is going to hurt anyone.



I have been doing a lot with no knead dough recipes, but I am going to cover those recipes in a later post. Making homemade pasta is so easy and good.


Jordan and Karly joined us to watch the KU VS Temple game. For an appetizer, we made our new favorite bacon-wrapped shrimp recipe. We made these for our New Year’s Eve progressive dinner and everyone loved them:


Ingredients:
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup lemon juice
2 tablespoons Extra Virgin Olive Oil or Canola Oil
4 teaspoons paprika
1 teaspoon each salt, pepper, curry powder, ground cumin and ground coriander
1/2 to 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
18 uncooked jumbo shrimp, peeled and deveined
9 bacon strips, halved lengthwise


Directions:
In a small bowl, combine the sugar, lemon juice, oil and seasonings. Pour 1/4 cup marinade into a large re-sealable plastic bag; add the shrimp. Seal bag and turn to coat; refrigerate for 30-60 minutes. Cover and refrigerate remaining marinade for basting.

In a large skillet, cook bacon over medium heat until cooked but not crisp. Drain on paper towels. Remove shrimp from marinade; discard marinade. Wrap each shrimp with a piece of bacon and secure with a toothpick.


Coat grill rack with cooking spray before starting the grill. Grill bacon-wrapped shrimp, covered, over medium heat for 5-10 minutes or until shrimp turn pink, turning and basting with reserved marinade. Yield: 1-1/2 dozen.


For my pasta, I refered to Beard on Pasta, by James Beard. Here is his basic egg pasta recipe (serves 3):
1 ½ cup all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon salt
2 large eggs

1 tablespoon oil (if using food processor or mixer)

I mixed it by hand and let it rest on the counter for a couple of hours and then let it rest in the refrigerator until I was ready to roll out the noodles. I have a hand crank, Atlas pasta machine, which makes rolling and cutting the pasta a breeze.

Barb made two sauces to go with the pasta, one red and one white – we all went for the 50-50 topping. Yummy!