Press "Enter" to skip to content

Posts tagged as “pasta dish”

Finally crossing off a food “bucket list” item: Homemade pasta

This is not a sponsored post or endorsement made in coordination with or paid by any of the brands or individuals mentioned here. 

You may remember that for a few consecutive years, I made a list of 3-5 goals that I called "Foodie Resolutions." It seemed like a fun idea at the time, but I tried and for the most part failed to complete them all within the course of the year.

I guess getting laid off and looking for a job while completing an MBA, then finding a job, then going back to my old job may have had something to do with it. (That, of course, is just a brief recap. Yikes. Reflecting on that time makes me think, "what a long, strange trip it's been," to quote Jerry Garcia.)

The overachiever perfectionist living inside of me was heartbroken. As much as I like setting goals and making lists—with color-coding and symbols for emphasis, Post-Its on the page added for extra notes about the lists, and all—I love crossing things off my lists more.

That's why writing this recap...

My final foodie goals verdict for 2016 was 2 for 5, and the two that I knocked off my list were making homemade kombucha and aioli. Pasta was a big ol' fail, though—I didn't get to it in time.

...which I updated just over three years ago, August 2017, kind of sucked. At the time, I also set a few goals for the remainder of 2017 that I wanted to try to accomplish. With four months left in the year at that point, that was also a big "F" for me. Womp, womp.

Today, I'm happy to say that, although I'm several years late, a quarantine task that Dave and I completed this year was to finally make homemade pasta!

It's true—it finally happened! And we made it again recently, too—with photos and video to prove it!

Pantry Raid: Baked Spinach Rotini Alfredo

Want to see more posts from Meal Prep Week? Search for #MealPrepWeek or see a recap of all of the posts here. I came home hungry from work one day and was too lazy to make something from scratch. It happens, right? Rather than resulting to take-out, I peeked around in my pantry and freezer for pasta, cheese, and some spinach to make this tasty Alfredo pasta dish in about a half-hour or less. It's perfectly OK to use a good, jarred alfredo sauce in this. I totally have in the past and did the little trick of adding onions and garlic to make it taste more like homemade, along with a little milk or cream to thin out the sauce (complete with adding it to the jar and giving the whole thing an ol' swish around to get the last of the sauce out.) If you have a little extra time, then alfredo sauce is definitely better to make and still requires just a few simple ingredients: garlic, butter, cream, and parmesan.