What a day!

Today went something like this:

4:50 - phone call saying there was a 2 hour school delay due to snow...yes!

8:00 - make breakfast

8:30 - phone call saying school is now canceled due to snow

9:00 - Chimney sweeper arrived....he comes 2 times a year (winter and spring) and it is always a surprise...no notice ever! Yes, he wears a traditional chimney sweeper outfit and is covered in soot.

12:30 - I decide today is a good day to make my first batch of homemade spaghetti for dinner tonight. I was in the process of making the dough when.....

1:00 - furniture delivery....YES....we now have some much needed storage for the kitchen AND for the bathroom upstairs. That will be another post. Lets just say there is NO storage in German homes!

1:15 - back to making the spaghetti...

I read that fresh spaghetti is best with a dairy based sauce. So, I had all of the ingredients to make Artichoke Hearts and Tomatoe Sauce which is made with a heavy cream.

Add these ingredients plus a little water....

After I took this picture I realized that I had the dough hook on instead of the flat beater.....
Due to the large amount of counter space in my kitchen (wink), my cooktop doubled as my workspace. The dough is divided into 4 sections and then runs through the pasta roller several times to knead the dough. Then it runs through a few more times on smaller settings to create the thickness desired.

Here is the dough after running through one time....each piece ended up being at LEAST 4 times this size!!!
Now it's time to run the extremely long dough through the spaghetti cutter. Um...I learned that I need to cut the pieces into smaller pieces than I did today!

My kids loved this part!

Here is the finished product on the drying rack......

Basil Italian bread we had with our dinner.....

Colton took this picture of Ian sleeping. Yes, he has a bed, but the floor works fine too:)
Homemade pasta IS different....lighter and less chewy! It is DELICIOUS!! Totally worth the small amount of effort it takes to make. I see more batches of dough in our future!