Faron's Birthday

It was Faron's birthday yesterday and I did a LOT of cooking (boys like food)! For his present I got him a bialetti espresso maker as he likes his espresso.

For breakfast I started with a cup of coffee from the coffee maker (hugely successful and highly recommended) and a piece of the very large indulgent chocolate cake I made the day before. It worked out so well..! I had some problems with it initially as it curdled but after adding the warm melted chocolate it was all fine again and tastes delicious.. one of the best cakes I have made!

For lunch I hadn't planned anything but we defrosted some pheasant breasts we had found by chance reduced to £1 last week. As he didn't have much in the way of ingredients I winged it and produced what I can only call a total fluke of a success. I'll post it later with a recipe.

I was totally prepared for dinner though. To start, I decided on a salad and found a recipe I thought would suit Faron's taste - Goat's cheese, Walnut and Pear Salad. It was really good and I highly recommend it. If you are going to make it for a starter I would suggest doing a smaller amount if possible as it was quite filling. This recipe would definitely serve 3 or even 4 small starters.

One of Faron's favourite meals is Tortellini Panne e Proscuitto [Tortellini with cream and proscuitto ham] so I decided to go a step further and attempt making my own pasta. I've done this before but never alone.. This tortellini panne e proscuitto was an excellent recipe. The recipe to make the pasta can be found on here from the same site. What it doesn't say however is do put your dough in the fridge for at least 30 minutes after kneading (tip from Jamie!). 

My shiny new Jamie Oliver pasta maker

Starting to make my own pasta

Kneading the dough was pretty tough. I was worried that it would be stodgy but that's just how it's meant to be.

I initially had problems feeding the dough through the machine. It was splitting everywhere. Another tip of Jamie's is after feeding it through the first time, fold it over and do the same thing a couple times on the first setting. Somehow this kills the problem of splitting dough and makes it much easier to work with and much more durable.. so you can then start feeding it through the thinner settings without problems.

I forgot to take a picture of cutting the squares and putting the mixture on them but essentially I cut the above strips horizontally into rough squares (hugely variable in size!) and put the filling on each one before folding.

                        

The finished product! Faron said that it was the best tortellini panne e proscuitto he has ever had (and he gets it a lot!) It was delicious even if I do say so myself and turned out so much better than expected even with all my pasta panicking.

One happy birthday boy