[sef and i spent the day together riding our bikes through the backstreets of sydney, sorting out old computers and helping others do some stencil printing. and then after that we spent *more* time together! dinner was a combination of our respective gardening efforts, and a whole lot of handle turning.]

sometime last year i found a pasta maker on the side of the road – it didn’t have the handle but i took it still, and on a trip to melbourne bought a handle from one of the italian grocers on sydney road. and the machine and handle have been sitting in my cupboard since then, unused.

saturday night inspired me though, and i made the pasta dough with some rocket from the garden, 2.5 cups of plain flour, 4 eggs and 2 tsp of olive oil. all together in the food processor (with the metal blade), and blended for less than a minute. it made a dough so quickly!

i kneaded the dough for a minute or two, then left it to rest for an hour.

we cut it the dough in 4 pieces, and rolled it through the machine lots and lots. after it got to the thinnest setting we need, we decided on spaghetti thin pasta – by the fourth lot we’d perfect the roll and cut!

while the pasta was resting we made a rocket pesto – a bunch of basil, all the rocket from adrian’s garden, a bag of pinenuts, lots of fresh garlic, lots of parmesan, olive oil and lemon juice. and blended the shit out of it till it was creamy and GREEN! luminescent green!

the pasta boiled in about 5 minutes, i drained it and then stirred the pesto through. it was perfectly cooked, and the noodles held themselves together so well.

served here with a lettuce, baby kale and mustard greens salad from our gardens.