My Little Chef - Spinach and Red and Yellow Pasta

 

We are still going strong with our pasta topic and we are finding more and more recipes to try and explore.

 

We have been pushing to include as many vegetarian dishes as possible following on from our campaign work with innocent and GIY to not only grow your own food but to help children have a healthier understanding and eating lifestyle.

 

William was really interested in finding out if he could create flavoured pasta using different vegetables and this has lead us to todays post. Spinach flavoured pasta and Red and Yellow pepper flavoured past!

Ingredients

 

Fresh Spinach (Around 10 Ounces)

2 Red and 2 Yellow pepper

140g Plain Flour

2 Medium Eggs

Flour for dusting

Resources

Scales

Handheld blender

Mixing bowl

Whisk

Clingfilm

Pasta machine (Not essential)

Method

 

William started with the Spinach pasta dough.

 

 

He started off by placing the spinach into a bowl and gently ran water over the leaves so there was a water clinging to them. He then placed it in the microwave for 3 minutes until the leaves were tender.

 

 

Once out, William drained the leaves and then dried them with kitchen paper. Then using a handheld blender he turned the spinach into a paste.

 

 

 

Following his previous recipe on how to make pasta dough, William measured 140g of flour and cracked 2 eggs into a bowl.

 

William then added the spinach paste to the dough mix.

 

William then mixed the ingredients to form a dough. He needed to add more flour as the spinach made the mix quite wet.

 

Once the mix had formed a dough consistency William rolled and kneaded it into a ball. He then wrapped it in clingfilm and placed it in the fridge.

 

 

Once ready it was time to roll the dough out. Using plenty of flour on the pasta machine the boys ran the dough repeatedly through to create a long flat sheet.

 

 

Using the cutting attachment the boys placed the strip in and cut it into linguine. They then left it on the side to dry.

 

William then moved on to making the Pepper pasta.

 

 

He sliced the red and yellow pepper into strips.

 

 

He then gently fried the peppers until soft.

 

Once cooked William used the blender to create a paste.

 

 As above William repeated the process of using flour, eggs and the paste and made the dough. He then placed it into the fridge before rolling it out into pasta to cook.

 Keeping with our vegetarian recipes theme William cooked Quorn sausages to go along with the pasta. Fresh pasta takes between 3 - 4 minutes to cook in hot water so you have to make sure that you don't over cook it and plan the meal times correctly.

 

He then made a salsa mix with chopped tomatoes, onions and a tsp of chilli powder as a sauce and then grated cheese on top.

As we had made the pasta dough before this was incredibly straightforward. Adding the different vegetables to the pasta helped find a way for the boys to have more in their daily diet.

 

In our opinion the pepper pasta was much nicer to eat. It continued to have a sweet taste to it and seemed to mix with the pasta dough recipe easily. However, none of us were too keen on the spinach pasta. I am unsure if we over steamed it, if the consistency was too runny so the added flour changed the taste or if we just didn't enjoy it? I would make it again if it was with other pasta but I doubt that I would independently.

 

What do you think? Would you give these a try?

 

Please let us know if you do and what your thoughts on the spinach pasta are!