Blueberries Are Okay.

I'm not one much for blueberries. I'm not one much for berries in general. Maybe it's the taste, maybe it's the texture, or the lack of juiciness. But really I think it's the fact that I have to eat 25 of them to get one serving of fruit. So what would ever make me want to bike to the orchard to pick these tiny fruits myself? The answer is Solebury Orchard's Apple Cider Ice. Imagine the most delicious apple cider you've ever tasted made into a slushie on a hot day. You'd be picking blueberries too.

So anyway, I have to admit that the fresh blueberries weren't all that bad, and they were exceptionally gorgeous. Again, the experience of seeing your fruit on a tree and then eating that fruit is about one-zillion times better than freezing your cutuckus off in the frozen food isle of a supermarket. I know I rant all the time about this, and eventually I will stop, but the more I visit supermarkets, the more I get really creeped out. You step into this giant refrigerator, and are greeted with perky flowers and a starbucks kiosk. Then you peruse isle after isle of food... from all over the world! The bright mounds of produce gleam like still life photos from the MOMA, and there's a looping thunderstorm in the leafy greens shelf.

I mean, I still buy the occasional avocado from Acme. But I came from work to find this fatty green treasure, whereas it came from CALIFORNIA. (And we grumble about the person who saunters in front of our car as we're hunting for parking spots!)

Anyway... blueberries, blueberries. Look how precious and perfect they are right off the branch!

Picking them was a pretty good time. Although I will say I felt strangely like a primate as I squatted and plucked ripe nerdles of fruit off a branch with my thumb and forefinger.

The next day, my berry pickin partner and I made some pretty dank blueberry crepes. Although I completely misunderstood how a crepe-maker is supposed to be used, they still turned out pretty well. Check it out:

CREPE BATTER:

3/4 cup all purpose flour

1/2 tsp salt

1 egg and 1 egg yolk

2/3 cup milk mixed with 2/3 cup water

3 tbs unsalted butter melted and cooled

BLUEBERRY FILLING:

three or four handfuls of fresh blueberries

4 Tbs of water

2 Tbs of packed brown sugar

1 Tbs of honey

Hand squeezed juice of half a small lemon

• Put all the blueberry filling stuff into a small saucepan and bring to a boil
• Turn down the heat and stir a few times
• Let this simmer until the blueberries break apart and turn into mush
• Stir occasionally as this happens to ensure it doesn't burn
• Let the water burn off the mixture and heat until it thickens slightly
• Keep warm until ready

For the CREPES:

• Throw the flour, salt, eggs, milk/water mix, and butter into a mixer or food processor
• Blend until smooth (pretty awesomely simple huh. I think you could do this with a hnad mixer on high if you don't have either of the other gadgets.)

Putting it together. There are a few different ways I've actually cooked crepes. I have used just a pan, and I have used a crepe maker. A crepe maker is easier, of course.

PAN:

• Pan on medium heat
• Brush with butter
• Pour a thin layer of batter into pan. You might not be able to pour only from the middle, you will probably have to pour in a spiral to get a large, thin, layer
• Cook until the top gets shiny and bubbles harden
• Slide out of pan onto plate

CREPE MAKER (the right way):

• Pour batter into provided dish
• Heat griddle until light goes off
• Invert the griddle into crepe batter dish to 'dunk' the face of the griddle in the batter
• Hold for a second
• Flip over and cook till the light goes out
• Remove with a rubber spatula when the crepe appears shiny by inverting over a dish

Crepes are great just with a little powdered sugar, with fruit, and cheese but IMO are best with all three. I'm not going to lie, I got impatient to eat and didn't bother to sift my confectioners' sugar. So unrefined, I know. I melted a little chocolate and drizzled it ontop as well. Lastly I experimented with white cheddar cheese in the blueberry filling and I've got to admit it was my favorite combination.

Peach Granita

What is granita? It's an Italian dessert and it's wonderful and that pretty much sums it up. If you must know the details, it's like sorbet, except made with only very fresh ingredients and without any ice cream maker machine. (This is one thing that frustrates me about summer desert... you can only read ice cream and sorbet recipes if you're in the 'I own a really expensive ice cream machine' club. Which I'm not in, which is why I love granita.)

Being that it's early summer, there's an abundance of fresh fruit around. One thing I've come to really appreciate is seasonal eating. Supermarkets have made it seem like all varieties of fruit grow at all times in convenient locations. Like magic, there are strawberries in January, apples in April, and bananas all year round. It sickens me a little, actually. The problem with eating produce out of season is that you loose so much flavor and nutrition, and you probably pay out the waahoo for it. "Sure, I'll buy this styrofoam strawberry in December, because well, it's here!"

The other great thing about eating seasonally is that after going much of the winter without these exotic fruits, the spring and summertime harvest are that much more exciting. The first bite of a ripe peach is like ...... I don't know what. I could get dangerously cheese here, so I'll refrain.

So here it is, a seasonal dessert that I absolutely love. Peach granita. It's really simple, and beats Rita's waterice and bomb pops any day. (Remember bomb pops? Side note: every time I see an ice cream truck drive by, I WANT to want the ice cream truck but now just can't get past how creepy the whole deal is...)

All you need is:

• 2.5 cups chopped peaches (about 4-5 peaches) Please use regional peaches that are ripe, and are NOT the 'white peaches'
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 2 tsp lemon juice
• 1 cup water
• a pinch of salt
• 1/2 tsp vanilla (or more if you want a a heavier vanilla taste)

In this desert, your final product is a direct reflection of your ingredients. So use good ones!

• In a food processor or blender, process all the ingredients till the mixture is pretty smooth
• Pour into a clean glass dish. It should be fairly big and flat so your mixture will freeze quickly
• Rake the outside edges to the middle every 20-30 minutes until the whole thing is frozen and 'granulated'
• Serve immediately plain or with fresh whipped cream and honey
• If you want to save it, just cover it, and give it a chance to soften up a little before serving again

You can make this with many different fruits. I've made a pretty awesome mango granita, and I think I'll try peach blueberry granita soon.

Note: I have been taking all my pictures with a google phone, which used to take surprisingly good pictures for a phone. Now with the updated software, the camera function has regressed, and my pictures look way worse. One of those instances where change does not always mean progress. This is a rant for another time.

Grumpy Granola

It's 8:25am and I'm disgruntled. My nose is stuffed, my legs are achy, my head kinda hurts, I'm thirsty, and the rooster woke me up at 7am... along with the dumpster trucks that roar back and forth to the nearby quarry. Ugh.

It sounds like a hangover. But the sad part is that it's not.

The crisp morning air wasn't enough to snuff out my melodramatic woes. So I'm making granola. As I sit the air is filling with a sweet almond scent of golden goodness. ugh.

I'm hoping that this batch will come out particularly well. Mostly, because I want to write about it. And I'm mostly writing about it because I'm sitting here, the unhappy clam that I am, waiting to turn the granola every 10 minutes.

So this is what you need:

• 3 cups rolled oats
• a glob of molasses (~1.5 tbs)
• small palmful of brown sugar
• a capful of canola oil
• 2 tbs of some sort of nut butter (I used sunnutbutter- made from sunflower seeds)
• a sizable mound of honey (~1/3 cup)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp almond extract
• a pinch or two of salt

Okay then, you have all your goods:

• mix together molasses and brown sugar with a fork until well combined
• add oil, nut butter, honey, extracts, and salt
• combine well
• examine your black substance and realize it resembles a mini BP oil spill, reflect on thisfor a moment, thank god you're not a sea turtle or sperm whale, and move on
• Mix well into rolled oats. This will take a few minutes of stirring and chopping with some sort of big spoon. You'll think it's too dry, but it's not... just keep mixing until everything is well coated.
• Spread out onto a big cookie sheet and bake at 350 for 25 minutes
• Every 10 minutes, take the sheet out to rake the edges in to the middle, and redistribute the granola around the tray.
• Voila! You have vanilla almond granola. Stir in any dried fruit you'd like. I stirred in black currents. Cherries or golden raisins would work really well too.

At 25 minutes I taste-tested and it had an amazing flavor. But I wanted it a teensy bit more crunchy. I put it back in the oven. This was a bad idea. I ended up baking mine for 31 minutes (instead of 25 like you should), and now it's too toasted. Adding to my grumpiness.... ugh.

Moving to the Country, gonna eat alotta peaches....

So, it's been a long long time since I've posted. But I have lots of excuses. Engineering projects, moving out of one apartment and all that headache, backpacking on an Assateague Island (otherwise known as the land-before-time-island-with-wild-ponies), moving into a farmhouse and all that awesomeness, cultivating a blooming acting career (ha), and starting a totally strange experience otherwise known as the internship.

Those are pretty good excuses, no?

I don't think so. Sounds like the typical humdrum of adult life where everyone's too busy for whatever; when really you're only too busy for the things you don't want to do. Maybe it's something you want to do, but darnit, you just can't afford the time. So here's the question: why do moments pass faster as we age? Is it because we do more of the same things more often (so the days move quicker because there's less to distinguish one day from another), or is it because we have actually just been alive longer? (Think: an 8 year old spending a day at the zoo: 5 hour of zoo trip out of 70080 hours of life VS a 30 year old spending a day at the zoo: 5 hour zoo trip compared to 262800 hours of life.
8 year old zoo trip = .007% of life
30 year old zoo trip = .0019% of life

So.... zoo trip as a 30 year old goes 'faster'. Relativity anyone? Although to be honest, .0019% of a 30 year old life seems like an oddly big percentage of his/her life to me. Did I calculate this right? I guess every moment is not insignificant, for sure.

Anyway, is this a food blog or is this a food blog?
To make up for not posting anything about food for a long long time, here's a quick photo journey of some of my food related experiences in the meantime.



Making pasta for a leaving Philly dinner party.

On the menu:

Antipast: Cannonelli bean dip

Prosciutto with melon

Ciabatta bread

Main: Fettucini al profumero al tartufo (Fettucini with mushrooms, asparagus, and truffle oil -thanks to a friend)

Dessert: Grapefruit with Honey Zabaglione (fresh honey whipped cream of sorts)

My favorite new thing to make (seemingly always after 10pm):

Avocado, mango, crab, and spicy mayo roll. (We couldn't find sushi grade fish at the hour. Otherwise, my newest favorite is the tuna, avocado, mango, crushed cashew, spicy mayo roll.)

When moving was too much, and I was really hungry, nothing could fix my yearning for that sweet, salty, spicy, creamy, smooth, crunchy, juicy, fried, and fresh dish like the infamous "Chaat House". Oh man is it an experience. I HIGHLY recommend a trip here.

The guys behind the counter are nicer than nice. You never quite know what you're ordering even though you had a full 3 minute conversation with the chef about it, and you never quite remember what you ordered in the past - just that it was good. Sounds like a trip huh? If you're bored, tired, hungry, looking for adventure... get to 42nd and Baltimore.

Why pay 5 bucks for a tiny box of granola, only to go through it in a few days when you can make pounds of customized granola for way cheaper? Well, for one thing, you're too busy. Except wait, it only takes 30 minutes! Too long? Doesn't beat out the 2 minutes it takes to shake a cereal box or microwave an oatmeal packet, you argue. Well, all I have to say is this: it tastes better if you made it yourself... and if it has no high fructose corn syup or BHTs for freshness, or coloring.... all things you have to pay more for to NOT have. It's ironic how we pay more for food that has less THINGS in it.

Ok, I'm done ranting... I really just loving homemade granola, I can't help it. It's like baking cookies, except you eat this in the morning, and it's pretty healthy.

My latest variation is: 3 cups rolled oats, 1/3 cup flaxseed tossed with a few spoonfuls of Sunnutbutter (the best nut spread ever IMO, thanks Julia!), a thick, crisscrossing, trail of local honey, a small palmful of brown sugar, shakes of cinnamon, a pinch of sea salt. Bake to toast for 50 minutes taking it out to rake the edges of granola to the center and tossing the oats around every so often (aka 15 mins). Then toss with chopped candied ginger, and sprinkle with black currants (like mini raisins). I usually buy a large box of regular bran or wheat flakes or rice chex to mix with the granola.... a bowl of straight granola is too calorie dense for a sit down 9-5 job. But it's great for backpacking!

Ah, and the finale: Strawberry Jam.

It's berry season, and PA happens to be pretty close to "God's Country" otherwise known as New Jersey. It's the state of juxtapositions: farms and industrial plants share municipalities, Ocean Spray keeps its cranberry fields in the state park, and you have to go right to go left if you're driving pretty much anywhere that has lights and two lanes.

Well, the point of the story is that it has farms. Strawberry farms in fact. Picking strawberries

with your own two hands is a lot more gratifying than I thought. Plus, there's just no

comparison between small farm strawberries and Driscoll's styrofoam excuse for strawberries. I took them home, ate/shared one flat of them, and made strawberry preserves with the other flat. My final product was a little stiff from an unavoidable incorrect ratio of fruit to fruit pectin. (I ate too many strawberries before leaving me with a little bit too much fruit pectin.) But it's sweet, and delicious, and fresh, and I'll probably do it again. I'll go into detail the next time.

Well, today is officially Colorado's bike to work day, and I think I'm going to celebrate it unofficially here in PA... so I've gotta ride!

Info-poetic-mercial-blog-gone-bad

Let me paint a picture for you: It's 8:00 on a Thursday afternoon, and the day couldn't be more perfect... for Philadelphia. It's not too hot, not too cold, and the traffic had just about subsided. It was a dusk for biking. Down the long stretch of deserted Washington, across the bricks of Broad street, I gently bumped along at a clip that's only possible on the main through-ways of the city. In case you didn't know, the front man from Sigur Ros just came out with a solo album. More spunky than the usual pastel soundscapes of his band, Jonsi's Icelandic slightly hip tunes of rejuvenation propelled me through the spring evening. Hitting a deeper cadence as I hit Front street, I sailed past the patchwork riverfront of old ports and new condominiums. The sparked sky and distinct smell of water somehow coexisted with the doppler drone of cars on the Columbus freeway. Jonsi's incoherent verbiage and ascending tempo seemed to dictate the spin of my wheels. I planned to go north into unknown territory today, but veered at the last second at Penn Treaty Park, succumbing to its river vista and soft grass, a rare thing in the city. As the faded, reverberating tones of Icelandic hymns lapped at my ears, I pedaled silently into a scene that surely could've been from any era. Old people discussed drivel with fervor in thick foreign tongues, young mothers with leftover belly-fat wandered around their children in a placid trance, kids jumped and shouted in tiny voices over a phantom shark sighting, couples walked and lay on blankets in the grass that was just starting to sprout summer gnats, small planes noiselessly crossed behind the Ben Frank bridge to someplace else, and the soft buzz of a boat faded in the distance. The sky was soft and light, and the river mirrored its hue. Turning west to weave my way back through dense urbanity, I noticed that the fading light on the city buildings gave them the color of the tiniest seashells that you find just where the ocean laps the shore.

Ok, with that kind of intro, I should be telling you that I came home and made a giant fruit cake. It's not true. I drizzled honey on a tart grapefruit, but didn't take any pictures. HOWEVER, I did feel relaxed enough to take the time out to blog about my new food creation.

And it is: Hummus Egg Salad!
The idea was born out of necessity and curiosity, as usual. I had a dozen hard-boiled eggs. (They make great hiking snacks.) I had a tub of hummus. I had no utensil. I wanted to eat both. In goes the egg for the scoop, and ta da! hummus egg salad was born. Taking the taste of this idea home with me, I tried a last attempt at hummus. Fortunately, it worked this time.

LONG STORY SHORT: you make -or buy- hummus (any kind you like). Then you slice and dice a couple of hardboiled eggs, and you mix together. Garnish with some fresh basil or cilantro and you're golden.



Here's the more detailed breakdown:

For the Hummus (if you don't buy it):

• Can of garbanzo beans
• 2 tbs olive oil (I skipped on the tahini because it hurts my stomach)
• 1 tbs lime juice
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 2 pinches sea salt
• 4ish sprigs of fresh cilantro

Puree or finely dice the garlic. Mix with the oil, lime juice, and sea salt. Puree or vigorously mix them together till a bit frothy. Add garbanzo beans and blend. A food processor works best of course.

For the egg:

Don't laugh, hard-boiling eggs can be a tricky and much debated subject. Do your own internet research if you wish, but I've found this way to be low-maintenance and delicious.

• Put however many eggs into a big pot
• Add cold water to cover the eggs
• Bring to a gentle boil, and let boil for 1-2 minutes
• Turn off the heat, cover the pot, and let stand for 12 minutes
• After the time is up, run cold water through the pot
• Stick the whole pot in the fridge, or dry them off and put back in their carton and then into the fridge... you're just trying to ensure they're not going to cook anymore

That's it. You should get easy to peel eggs that aren't cracked, and don't have greenish yolks.

After that, you can follow the directions in orange up above. I warmed a corn tortilla on the gas stove and piled the egg salad on top. Not pictured: a sprinkle of shredded white cheddar cheese.

It's that simple! The egg and hummus combination tastes great, and you can avoid eating the strange substance that is mayonnaise and/or miracle whip! And it's healthy! And... I sound like an infomercial.

Just don't eat any more eggs for the day and it'll be part of a complete lunch. (1.5 egg yolks is about your daily cholesterol intake... however, this study says that the body doesn't absorb all the cholesterol in the egg anyway. Also, the yolk houses all the nutrients of the egg. So make your own decisions... everything in moderation, including moderation, yada yada yada.)

Alright, the info-poetic-mercial-blog-gone-bad is over. Thanks for reading!

I guess the two halves ain't supposed to touch....

Thanks Mitch, for the really remarkable insight about bread and its filler. If you don't know this joke, click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTKb5xzyqu8&feature=fvsr

In a similar vein but opposite vein, my bagel halves touch all the time, but mostly because I don't buy bagels. Also because I found all these OTHER reasons to eat cream cheese.

Alright, so the lox and cream cheese idea is old hat. Taste great, but we've all been there before. And if you haven't, GO there for breakfast. We've all made spinach dip before too. Again, good, but not for this post.

To be honest, these adventures in cream cheese

came from another moment of desperation in my kitchen. Moving out in less than in a month means using up all your food in the kitchen. (Who wants to cart food from one place to another? not me.)
The first idea incorporates the good ol kale leaf. It was a pretty simple idea, but tasted so much better than I anticipated.

I coated a skillet with a bit of butter, added ripped pieces of kale, and thin slices of carrot. Toss to coat, let them sizzle a little. The kale should start to soften up. After about 3 minutes of this, add...... 2 tbsp of cream cheese! Let it soften and mix it in to the best of your ability. It should start really sizzling now. Add a pinch or

two of salt. Let this cook for another 3 minutes, until it seems like there's some burning happening. You could add other things to this ensemble, but I fried an egg, and it was the perfect compliment. For whatever reason, the slightly cooked cream cheese gave the kale a really round, tender taste. It gave the sentiment of fried food without being fried food.

Alright, let's be real - who's really going to make cream cheese kale? I haven't the foggiest idea, but if you're brave and want a fast tasty salad, give it a whirl.

Here's another, more acceptable thing to do with cream cheese: make date nut spread for bread or muffins. I think my rational for this went something like this "hmm, I have these wonderful dates for eating... I'll make date nut bread... hmm, these dates are really plump and sweet, why would I hide them in a bunch of flour?.... f' date nut bread, I'll make date nut spread!" As I discovered with the spinach pasta, the flavor and nutritional content of some ingredients are much better suited to be featured than incorporated.

So here's what to do:

• Soften the dates by soaking them for 7-10 mins in a cup of hot hot coffee and 1 tsp of baking soda.
• Put dates, 2 tbs pecans, and 6 peanuts in a processor with a bit of the leftover coffee
• Pulse until chopped fairly small
• Add a few knife-full slabs of cream cheese (I think about 5 tbs) and process till fairly smooth
• Add a drizzle of honey all over the top of this in whatever cool pattern you like, pulse again to incorporate
• Add pinches of salt to taste

That's it! Careful, the dates make this very sweet, but the nutty flavor grounds it. It's really great on muffins, banana bread, and.... well, okay bagels.

Melts in Your Mouth Pasta

So I think I've decided to make this food blog a little more helpful and informative rather than a narrative of my cooking/baking experiences. That might be entertaining, but what's the point of a food blog if you can't get any good recipes out of it?

I'm going to admit: there's only a few things that I can make really, really well. And if you're like me (aka. not a professional chef) these things only get to be great because of repetition. 'Over and over and over and over.... like a monkey with a miniature symbol.' Seriously, there are nuances in a recipe that you only come to recognize once you're beyond worrying about whether you put all the ingredients in.

So here's a variation on one thing that I'm really really good at - making fettucini from scratch. You might ask yourself, "isn't she worried that she is giving away the secret of something really valuable, so that she won't be special anymore because now many other people can make bomb diggity fettucini?"

Well, I thought about this, and the answer is "no". 1.) That would be egotistical and selfish. It would make me happy if you could make fettucini too 2.) We live in the age of transparency. Your facebook account just told me you liked Sasha's 'single' status, and that you became friends with my high school boyfriend, and that you were drunk on Friday night... so I'm going to tell you how I make pasta. About a zillion other people are doing the same. 3.) My grandma has been giving us her pasta sauce recipe for years, and it still never tastes as good as when she makes it. She says she makes it with 'a lot of love. That's all.' Obviously reason 3 is the only reason why I'm posting this recipe.

Anyway, making pasta requires one special thing. A pasta maker. You can get this as an attachment to a Kitchen Aid, or you can use an old school pasta maker that you turn by hand. In either version, there are rollers that flatten the dough into successively thinner sheets. There are also rollers that cut the pasta into whatever shape you desire. I understand that finding a Kitchen aid and pasta attachment on command is not something many of us can do. I also understand that if you have this tool, you probably already know how to make pasta. BUT, seeing how it is spring, and people are having garage sales, you should know that hand-cranked pasta machines are likely suspects in an old lady's garage sale.

Oh also, I need to say some stuff about flour: For this recipe I used half white half whole wheat. However, you can modify by using all white or all wheat. But you are warned! You may have to adjust water or flour additions while kneading to make sure your dough ball is the right consistency. For example, a whole wheat flour will absorb more liquid than a traditional semolina flour so you may need to add more water while kneading. My concoction equaled about 1.5 cups flour total, but I specifically use weight when measuring for pasta, because each different kind of flour has a different weight, and there's many different ways to pack a measuring cup. ALL THAT BEING SAID.... don't be afraid to experiment! It's better to make something your way and have it be a little under par than to not make it at all because you can't replicate the instructions exactly.

Alright, with that lightyear digression out of the way, here's what you need for the dough:

• 400 g of flour (200 wheat, 200 white... or about 0.75 cups each)
• 5 oz chopped spinach. I used fresh and cooked it, but you can use thawed frozen chopped spinach as well. Squeeze most of the water out of the spinach after cooked/thawed
• 2 eggs
• healthy pinch of salt

So that's it. Flour, spinach, eggs, and salt. Normally pasta calls for some water, but there's enough water in the spinach for our purposes.

Here's the long, informative version (scroll down for short version):

• Puree the spinach and egg together. Ideally I'd like it to be a perfectly smooth green liquid, but cheapo food processor just can't take it up to that notch.
• Add the salt
• Sift flour together in a large bowl, and make a little crater.
• Pour in some of the spinach mix into the crater.
• Mix with a spatula or spoon. Doing this part on a table, and with your hands is tempting. Believe me, I've probably done this a dozen times that way. It feels super authentic, but honestly, you spend most of your time trying to get the resultant dough gloves off your hands and back into the dough ball.
• Add the spinach mixture a little at a time, mixing with each addition. I'd say 4 additions for the whole shabang is appropriate.
• Mix with the spatula until most of your material is sticking to itself in one way or another. If you still have some crumblies that don't want to incorporate, wet your fingertips and make like you're spritzing someone in the face with freshly washed (and not dried) hands. Then continue to mix everything together
• At this point, you should have a cohesive mass, but it might be lumpy (see the picture)
• Now turn this dough ball out on a lightly floured surface. You need to knead it for about 10 minutes. I can't teach you how to knead over the internet. You just need to work it, fold it, smush it, punch it... perhaps to a Daft Punk record.
• The secret to good pasta is in this step. When I lived in Florence, I took a cooking class. So there we were, about 13 young girls with biceps the size of Red Bull cans, trying to knead this dough. It was like watching a 2 year old hit a punching bag. The chef dudes kept genially harassing us to knead harder... and we tried... in vain. When they felt that we could improve the dough no further, they took over. With arms like impact drivers and hands like bear claws, they owned the dough. Well, let me tell you... I might not have impact driver arms, but my guns are much bigger than they used to be. You want to knead the dough until it becomes smooth and springy. If you push your finger into it, the dough should pop back out at least halfway. If it's too dry and stiff, add more water by putting water on your hands while kneading. If it's too sticky and soft, add more flour on the outside of the ball and work it in. What you're doing is mechanically linking gliadin and glutenin proteins. These linked molecules form gluten, which creates the molecular structure for what we know as chewy dough.
• After you've given the kneading step a shot, let this dough ball rest for about 30 minutes. You're letting the gluten proteins relax enough to make the dough workable.
• Now, at this point you need to break out your pasta making machine.Cut chunks of dough off in about 1/5" thick slices. Roll out the dough a bit so it will fit into the machine with the rollers on the lowest setting (1). Roll through setting 1 twice, and successive settings only once. I usually go up to 4. This gives the fettucini some weight, but doesn't make it chewy.
• Now replace the roller attachment with the fettucini cutting attachment. This is when the magic happens. It's mesmerizing, really. Don't wait too long between when you roll out the dough to when you cut the dough. Your sheets of pasta will oxidize and start to turn brittle in as little as 30 minutes. When it turns brittle, the pasta will crack as it goes through the cutting attachment, and you'll end up with pasta pieces instead of noodles.
• Take your cut fettucini and hang to dry. I've used everything from a clothing rack to strings tied around chairs to do this. This time, I cleared and cleaned off my wire shelving of all my pots and pans. Make sure you separate any noodles sticking together. I think this is the worst part about making fettucini.
• Let the noodles dry for a bit before cooking them or storing them in some airtight container. I usually don't refrigerate them, but some people are addicted to the idea of preservation, so do whatever you like with them.

And... the abbreviated version:

• puree spinach, eggs, salt
• gradually mix this into flour
• mix until you form a mass that sticks together
• knead on a floured surface for 10 minutes, or until smooth and springy (add water and flour as kneeded, hardy har)
• rest for 30 minutes
• put sections of dough through machine twice through 1, once through 2, 3, and 4
• cut pasta sheets with fettucini attachment
• hang to dry
• cook 3-4 minutes in salted, boiling water

So that's it! You only need to cook these noodles for about 3-4 minutes instead of the usual 9-10 for whole wheat pasta. Pasta dried in an industrial sense requires a longer cooking time, and usually has a stiffer texture. Freshly made pasta is cooked very quickly, and has the 'melt in your mouth' affect.

Ps. If you don't have a pasta machine, but still want to try this: make lasagne or ravioli. All you have to do is roll the dough out in sheets until it's pretty thin (think the thinness of a tortilla). Then either use in lasagne, or make into ravioli. (ugh, I'm tired of typing... just google 'how to make ravioli)