Christmas Treats-Pasta and Sauce

This year we decided to make a bunch of homemade treats. The next few posts will be about some of the things we made to give away. The first one pictured below is pasta sauce and pasta. Once again my love of canning really worked out well. While I worked on the sauce Tim once again perfected the art of rolling and cutting the pasta. I still have no idea why I can't for the life of me roll and cut the pasta. Oh well, I think everything turned out great.

Quick Marinara Sauce-From Giada's Family Dinners

-2 ( 28 oz) cans of whole tomatoes in juice

-1 bunch of fresh basil (I substituted some of the basil from our garden that I blended with olive oil and froze)

-1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

-2 small onions, chopped

-4 garlic cloves, chopped

-1 ts dried oregano

-1 ts sugar

-salt and pepper

In a blender, puree the tomatoes with their juice and the basil until almost smooth. Set aside.
Heat oil in a large heavy saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic and saute until very tender. Stir in the tomato puree, oregano, and sugar. Bring to a simmer over medium heat. Season with salt and pepper.

Then can. As you can see it made about to pint jars.

Fresh Pasta
-8 oz all purpose flour (about 2 cups)
-1tsp salt
-2 large egg yolks
-5 large egg yolks
-1 T olive oil

Combine flour and salt in bowl. Make a mound with an impression in the middle. Put eggs, yolks and olive oil in the middle of the impression. Break each yolk by poking it with a finger, then in a circular motion begin to incorporate flour from the side of the mound. Continue until all the flour is incorporated. Turn out onto tabletop and knead by hand until dough is smooth and elastic.

The dough can now be rolled through a pasta machine, or wrapped in plastic and placed in the refrigerator to rest for 30 minutes or so. Proceed according to what sort of pasta you would like.

We looked all over the Internet to find drying times and how long the pasta would keep. We ended up coming across a site that said to dry the noodles for up to an hour, wrap tightly in plastic and the noodles can be kept in the fridge for 2-3 days or in the freezer for up to 3 months.

The finished product. Cheers!