Making Spaghetti

The morning began with Josephine and Diego playing with blocks. These blocks have clear colored acrylic "windows," so the kids experimented with shining flashlights through them. It became very interesting . . . what if two colors are put together? . . . what if an object is put on top?

In the afternoon, we made a batch of pasta dough, which basically consists of lots of flour, some eggs, a little water, and a little salt.

Here Eden adds an egg . . .

. . . and Katie adds an egg . . .

. . . and Orianna adds an egg . . .

. . . and Lucas . . . well, you can see for yourself . . .

. . . and Ryan adds an egg . . .

. . . and Josephine, who does not care to dirty her princess hands with messy eggs, adds the salt.

Then everyone watches as the ingredients are mixed together.

The dough did come together, but basically it was too dry. But it shouldn't be overworked, so it was a little late to add extra water. Next time I think we'll do the mixing by hand.

Eden helped out with kneading the extremely tough dough . . .

. . . and then took a little break to play with small plastic animals and blocks with Lucas, who of course disappeared when the camera came around the corner.

Everyone took turns making their own strands of spaghetti. Here you can see Orianna "conditioning" or "kneading" her dough with the machine, feeding it through several times.

Then the roller was exchanged for a pasta cutter, and the sheets became spaghetti.

And here we have all the finished spaghetti on drying racks, ready for tomorrow's lunch.

Because Lucas would not be here for lunch tomorrow, he wanted a sample of his spaghetti. We cooked it up and added freshly grated parmesan cheese.

Wow, hardly a scowl! That pasta must be really good.