Cooking again...

I slept in a wee bit late this morning. When my wife left for work at 5am my youngest climb into bed with me and then stole my pillow. I figured I could suffer for another 2 hours like that and dozed back off. The next thing I knew it was 9:30 and he was snoring.

Sitting here watching the idiot box I keep seeing the commercial by Morgan Spurlock who did the documentary "Super Size Me" and is now working on a show called "30 days." Well the intro riff that is played during the commercial sounds so familiar that it has been bugging me for days. Then this morning it hit me! It is the intro to "The passenger" by Siouxsee and the Banshees which I believe is a remake of an Iggy Pop song. Either way both are from the punk/post-punk genre and what I grew up listening to. It reminds me of the time the listerene commercial had "Tarzan Boy" by Baltimora. The song hit the alternative charts in 85 but did not hit the mainstream charts until 93 after it was used in the commercial and then one of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movies.

Not much on the agenda today. The weather has cleared and the storm front blew on by late yesterday leaving me and my arthritis alone for a change. It finally seems like spring. When I rolled out of bed at 10am this morning it was to the sounds of kids and lawnmowers, the way spring should be.

I made some nice pasta dough yesterday and I am going to roll it out later on and make some ravioli for dinner. I thought just some simple cheese ravioli would be nice with a touch of fresh basil and some oil and then the foccacia bread (which I made yesterday) with some sundried tomatoes, cracked pepper and some oil to dip it in. I figured since I was already in the kitchen and in pain I would make the weeks pizza dough as well. I made it with basil and garlic then cut it down to size for 4 12" pies.

I tried to run the pasta dough through my kitchenaid pasta attachment using the lasagna attachment but it kept tearing. I figure I will just roll it out by hand and have the boys help me put the filling down. There is not much better then making your own pasta from scratch and it is so easy, especially if you have the flat beater arm for the stand mixer.

I love to spend time in the kitchen but the arachnoiditis has put a crimp on what and how long I can be in there. Making pasta dough is something I would love to do more often but even with the mixer doing some of the work you still have to kneed it by hand for a good 10 minutes. It needs to be elastic and smooth which means the gluten really needs to be worked and that means you really have to kneed it by hand to get the desired product.