'bout time I did a Foodie Post :)

Today, my own husband and I decided to make fresh Tortellini (which we've only done once or twice previously), partly from his (my husband's) own family recipe, but a small portion of the filling, I put aside to make my own. We had a bit of a tough time doing so as, though we had prepared the filling for our Tortellini, and made the fresh pasta, we discovered that our pasta machine was broken when we went to roll out the pasta, so we raced out (figuratively speaking, as far as racing is concerned) to buy a new pasta machine. By the way, we bought a proper Italian Pasta Machine (despite that having cost being almost £70, it was well worth spending the money on from John Lewis & Partners (as we had had to scrap two previous pasta machines, after only one use, each one). I'm glad that John Lewis had a pasta machine available to buy, at the time that we went there, as otherwise we would have been mid-way through making this lovely pasta dish, and been stuck rolling the pasta by hand, which is rather time consuming and not that accurate for making thin pasta.

So, from an afternoon of enjoyment, as far as my husband and I are concerned, without any interruption, other than having to drive to buy our new pasta machine, we were able to make around 140 pork and speck tortellini, which by our calculations should be sufficient for six, two person meals. My husband and I, therefore, shall be eating those once a week for about six weeks :) I then took round one batch to my parents, though have yet to hear from them as to whether they've eaten those. My husband and I certainly did and we ate those with the broth that I made, which was from fresh chicken stock, a bit of added Bisto chicken stock, water and a few diced veggies (courgette, tomato, onion and a bit more besides), which was delicious and these are a few photos during the process.

I might update this post at some point, to include the full ingredients, but we basically had a fun time making fresh tortellini from a small (third of the size of a small joint of pork) minced the old fashioned way, some flour ( 00 or plain), a few eggs, nutmeg, herbs and a small amount of diced Speck (which is an Italian ham and could be left out, or substituted for another type of ham, if you prefer, to keep that element in)

The following week, my husband and I made Seafood Raviolli, which also turned out great. That recipe, though my husband searched online for it and so I cannot claim that as my own, nor would I consider doing so. Other than adding a bit of a lovely Putanesca sauce from a jar, bought at the supermarket and quite a generous serving of Grana Padano Cheese, a bit of butter/Flora and Sage, we were off and running... oh and the small amount of left over pasta, we made fresh Tagliatelli, so another meal, at some point. Happy cooking all and any questions about these recipes, the only way to find out the answer, is to ask a question via this, my blog post :)