Carried Away

I finally have my Kitchen Aid mixer that I got for Christmas thanks to a special delivery on Sunday. It came with the pasta making attachment and I could not wait to try it. Luckily I had the day off yesterday, so I told my roommates I would make them dinner. I may have gotten a little carried away...

I started making spaghetti and quickly covered very inch of available counter space with drying noodles. Halfway through the dough, I switched to the rigatoni attachment. The rigatoni was much easier to handle. I need to work on my quality control as the noodles ended up different lengths but overall my first pasta making experience was a success!

I had some store bought pesto that I wanted to use but instead of using it straight out of the jar, I decided to make my own version of the Pioneer Woman's Pesto Cream Sauce. I basically just added a few spoonfuls of pesto to some cream and melted butter and threw in some parmesan. You can't go wrong with that combination.

I grilled some chicken on my George Forman and roasted the tomatoes using a recipe similar to this one from Barefoot Contessa.

I wanted to make something for dessert as well. When I told my mom that I was making dinner for everyone, she recommended keeping it simple. I am known for tackling difficult dessert recipes. At first I thought about making this recipe from Iowa Girl Eats but then figured we didn't need two dozen cupcakes in the house. So I decided to go with berries and homemade whipped cream. I used this recipe for the whipped cream and sprinkled shaved semi-sweet chocolate over the top.

Monday night dinner for the win. If only I could spend all day in the kitchen everyday!