Italleeee

I have just realised that 2010, sadly, was a year in which I did not visit Italy. Being a spoilt brat, in 2008 I went to Venice and Lake Como, in 2009 I went to Matera in the spring and Lake Como and Garda in the autumn. But this year...nada. In fact, since we have scrimping and saving our pennies foreign travel has been neglected in 2010. Again, I am aware how spoilt that makes me sound, but with relatively few other extravagances, travel is something I do like to spend my pennies on.
I feel a New Year's resolution coming on...I want to finally make that trip to Cuba this year. The autumn or winter seems achievable. Lets hope!

Anyway, back to Italy. Perhaps my withdrawal symptoms was what made me finally purchase this little beauty over the Christmas period:



Yes, a pasta roller/cutter.

I am aware that this is a gadget along the lines of 'definitely not strictly necessary' for a kitchen. Which is probably why it had sat on my Amazon wish list for about 18 months as I procrastinated about whether it was worth spending money on a nonessential item.
And then over Christmas I threw caution to the wind and bought it.

So on Monday, to celebrate the bank holiday, we had homemade pasta for dinner. I can honestly say that the machine made all the difference. I've never been able to roll pasta out thin enough by hand, but this machine worked like a dream, producing a beautiful silky textured pasta that made gorgeous cannelloni. Yum yum.

I then followed this up on thursday with Tuna 'meat'balls from the Jamie Oliver Jamie's Italy cook book.



Whilst they are intended to be served with pasta we currently have a potato glut so I served them on mash instead.


(sorry for the bad photo!)

Find the recipe on Jamie Oliver's website here.
The cinnamon, herbs, and lemon in the meatballs were great, and it worked very well with potatoes. I amended the quantities very slightly as I didn't have much bread or parmesan, so I reduced these (about 1/2 the quantity of bread, about 1/4 the quantity of parmesan). I think it does need the extra bread as our meatballs did have a tendency to fall apart a bit. If you are like me, and not mad keen on cheese, then I suggest you also reduce the cheese. I also reduced the pinenuts to about 1/4 of the quantity as we were nearly out of pinenuts too. I think that was fine, but more wouldn't hurt.
I'm not as keen on frying stuff as Jamie is, so I lightly braised my tuna and baked my meatballs instead of frying it all.



This worked fine, and at this post-Christmas time of year, it seemed kinder on my waist-line!