Recipes Cooking

Ive been meaning to make this ever since I held the birthday party for Dad, since this is the ideal pasta for Spinach Lasagne. I finally got around to it! And then when I was making it, I remembered to take a photo of how it should look before the mixture is pressed into a dough, but forgot to take a picture of the actual dough. Oh well. Sorry. Youll see the finished product tomorrow when I do something with the pasta...

6 to 8 servings
about 2 hours, divided over time


8 cups spinach leaves
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon olive oil
2 large eggs
about 2 1/2 cups kamut or durum flour

Wash and pick over the spinach, and cook it until well wilted. Drain well and cool. Take it up in handfuls, and squeeze well to remove as much moisture as possible.

Put the dry spinach into the bowl of the food processor with the salt and olive oil. Process until it is very well chopped. Break in the eggs, one at a time, and again process until smooth and well blended.

Put in about 1 1/2 cups of the flour and process again until well mixed. Continue to process, adding in the flour several tablespoons at a time, until the mixture begins to form little beads. Once it does, it can be turned out onto a sheet of plastic film and pressed together into a solid mass. Its important to get the amount of flour just right. Too little, and the pasta will fall apart when cooked. Too much and it will be hard to roll out, and tough. It will take a little practice to get it right. You may wish to take a bit out every so often as you are mixing it, and pinch it together and roll it out to see how it handles.

Once the dough is mixed, wrap the dough in the plastic and leave it to rest for at least 15 minutes.

Divide the dough into 4 quarters and roll each one out as thin as possible with a little of the flour sprinkled onto the board or countertop to prevent the dough from sticking. The dough should be stiff but flexible.

Cut the pasta as desired for lasagne, ravioli, noodles etc.

It should be kept loosely wrapped in plastic in the fridge until you are ready to cook it.

Drop it into a large pot of salted boiling water, as with other pasta. The exact time to cook it will depend on how thin the dough has been rolled - probably anywhere between 6 and 10 minutes. You will need to watch it carefully.

These days we are all trying to stretch a buck and for me that means using up leftovers. Sometimes I am appalled at the amount of food I throw away. Its wrong and Im really trying hard not to do that anymore. I dont know about you but I always make way more sauce than I need. Most of the time I make enough to freeze but sometimes its just not enough to take up space in my freezer. Its times like these that using up the sauce for a skillet pasta works well. I had some leftover meat sauce and some fresh mozzarella. If you had some ricotta you could through that in too and make some baked ziti, any veggies you have would also be a lovely addition but you dont have to have anything special. Sauce, pasta and some mozzarella is all you need.


There isnt a recipe, its very easy. Heat up your sauce in an oven proof skillet. Cook your pasta to al dente, drain, toss with sauce. Add diced or shredded mozzarella (and anything else you want to through in), toss again. Youll see the mozzarella is starting to melt from the hot sauce. Sprinkle some romano cheese on top and stick it in a 375 degree oven until cheese is melted and bubbly. If you want the cheese to brown turn your broiler on for a few minutes until the desired color is achieved.


Is that easy enough? No more throwing away leftovers!