Everything homemade: Homemade pasta

Pasta? Homemade? Really? yep. :)

Here's what you need. For four or five servings.

2 cups of all purpose flour
2 to 3 tablespoons of margarine or butter
3 large eggs
A bit of milk
A handful of lightly roasted sesame.(Optional)

Here's what to do.

Pile the flour on the counter top.

Cut in the margarine in and make crumbs as if you were making pastry. In the end all the margarine should be  incorporated into the flour & should resemble coarse bread crumbs.

Lightly beat the eggs beat into the flour mixture with a fork. Add the sesame if using.

 Knead well with your hands until the dough stops being sticky & is elastic. If you feel the dough is too tough to handle, add about a tablespoon of milk.

 Divide the dough into 4.

Roll out each portion to paper thickness while flipping & sprinkling with flour to prevent sticking. 

Hang to dry. Use can use a broomstick or as in my case just hang on the clothesline. :) Dry for about half an hour.

Sprinkle some flour to prevent sticking. Roll each sheet of pasta like a Swiss roll to a tube and cut slices which will unroll to long pasta strips.

 There you have it. Homemade pasta.
To cook this. Boil a pot of water add a bit of salt & oil & add the pasta. Cook till al dante. And proceed with as you would with regular store bought pasta.

To keep this, if not using straight away, hang the cutout stripes to dry for about a day or two & store in an air tight container.

Homemade pasta would also make a lovely gift.

rays of green

rays of green
Originally uploaded by BookBaker

just a pineapple.

What's new on my bookshelf

Good morning people!!! :)

I bought two books last evening. One of them, I've decided to carry with me at all times.

"The complete cook's encyclopedia of spices" by Sallie Morris & Lesley Mackley.  

I was in the book shop trying to decide if I should buy a book about herb gardening which was really costly, when my eye caught this gem. It wasn't all that heavy on the purse & is full of delightful pictures.

                          

I love spices & herbs. Who doesn't right? For many of the dishes I make, I use liberal quantities of garlic (being my all-time favourite spice) and coriander leaves (favourite herb). But I hate to admit that some of the herbs & spices I come across any certain recipes I have no idea of or even if we can find them in Sri Lanka.

                               

This book I believe will be immense help to solve this problem for me. This book not only contains all the necessary information about spices, how to prepare them and  how to store them it also carries a variety of delectable recipes and ways to make spice mixtures to liven our food.

                              

                            

Next obstacle? Finding the Sinhalese names for some of the spices.

BookBaker out. Have a spicy day people!

Meet CupCake

Hello, fellow crafters out there!! It's been a long long while..

Meet My dearest, closest, bestest friend, CupCake.

While being my best friend, she also happens to be a great crafter. I have tasted her food, and yep, they are great. Last time I was at her place, she made the most delicious tofu dish I've ever tasted I' tell you.

While I was loafing around in her house, I also happened to notice a beautiful piece of knit. And she happened to be wearing a summer dress that she herself had sewed.

Her crafty skills are thus endless. But these are not the only things that make her a great person.

She's fun to be with. Extremely caring. When I'm down & snotty she comes to my rescue. Shows me that maybe things aren't as bad as they seem to me & that maybe I'm a little bit too prejudiced. :D

Why I'm sometimes envious of her? :) She can eat as much as she wants & never puts on a pound. & has the biggest loveliest eyes ever. 

For my wedding gift, she gave me a hand-made clutch purse that I love. You should try making one. The one I got was BEAUTIFUL.

BookBaker Out.

P.s
So many crafts coming out very very soon on my blog. :)

The prettiest black flower necklace

 

Same as the last one. Actually this was done earlier.  & the necklace is not crocheted. Just braided yarn. I think the button on the flower looks nice. Don't you?

Book Baker out!

p.s As you can see, I'm using picnik at a rate here to edit my pics. It's a really cool site. (And no, they're not paying me to say it :) )

Simple crochet necklaces

Oh so pretty! If I may say so myself. Simple crochet necklaces how to.

Not only are these very easy to make even for a person who doesn't crochet, but they're also rather cute.

What you need

1. 2 balls of different coloured crochet yarn. (Or one, or more as you prefer)
2. Crochet hook
3. A string of matching coloured sewing thread
4. Needle
5. Youtube access (if you're like me)
6. Necklace clasp or large bead of matching colour

So Here's how to.

I just crocheted 4 long chains using both white & earth coloured yarn held together as one. If you don't know how to crochet, do what I did before I learnt how to. (Which is not much even now by the way). Take 3 long strands (2 2/1 times to 3 times) of intended necklace size (In this case 3 pairs of 2 different colours held together) and braid them as you would your hair. (if you're long haired)

By varying the lengths of the chains you can actually acheive a really nice effect.Take a piece of thread & sew the chains together at each end. Sew the necklace clasp accordingly or if you're using a large bead instead, sew the bead to one end & sew a loop to the other end of the necklace.

Now the flowers,

I learnt this by going through some crochet flower tutorial videos on youtube. But here's how they basically go.

chain 5
attach the last chain link to the first by slip knot
chain 3 (counting as the 1st doublie crochet), double rochet 9 around the ring and join
to make the first petal, chain 3 (counting as the 1st double crochet), 3 double crochet in the next stitch, chain 2 & slip knot into the next stitch.
Repeat 4 more times for 4 more petals.

Using a smaller hook will give you a smaller flower & using a bigger hook (Err, duh!) & using triple crochet (I think that's the word, correct me if I'm wrong people) will give you a bigger flower.

Trial & error folks. I tried to improvise first, before I thought to look in Youtube & that flower wasn't too bad either. Not great, but passable.

And if you don't crochet, hate crochet, but still like these necklaces, make fabric flowers (Cut about 6 to seven circles of fabric, singe the edges & stictch in the middle with a few beads- More on that later? Information overload eh?) & attach. Fabric flowers rock!

Happy crocheting everyone! :)

BookBaker out!

p.s
I just might give away a crochet flower necklace to anyone who can guess who it is in the pictures. (Or not)

p.p.s
Just so you know,  my craft resolution for the month is everything recycling polythene/plastic.  Pictures of what I made, later.

Leaves.. Ooohh I love leaves..

Taken last year at my dad's office. Can't remember the name of the tree..