‘When In Rome,’ I went to a spaghetteria called L’Archetto. It boasts 100 different pasta sauces, so we thought why not… “When in Rome.” It was a small little restaurant filled with Italians, and we liked it so much, we went there four times in a little over a week.
I loved every sauce I tried, but the most interesting one had pineapple in it. I’ve tried for months to recreate it, and this is the closest I’ve come. It’s not a perfect match, but it’s delicious anyway. My recipe is perfectly seasoned for fall, so what better time than now to try it? And it tastes just right over whole wheat pasta.
I’ll be honest, I don’t prefer whole wheat because it’s healthier, I just like the way it tastes. But, from what I’ve heard it is healthier than regular pasta because whole grain has more fiber, protein, and less calories. Not to mention, it goes against everything Italians believe in and fits into a low-carb diet.
So I picked up some whole wheat flour and got to work. After all the time I spent perfectly positioning the Roma by Weston Electric Pasta Machine to stand out but also look casual on my counter, I swiped it off and whisked it away to my soon-to-be-flour-covered work station.
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| I love the way this machine looks |
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| Inside of the Roma Electric Pasta Machine |
Click here for my Whole Wheat Pasta Dough recipe.
Once it was mixed, I broke off a palm sized chunk, patted it down in flour, then fed it into the machine at setting one. I folded it over and fed it back through a few times to get it nicely kneaded. I then increased the setting gradually, feeding the dough through each time until setting six, flouring the dough each time I fed it.
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I ended up with nicely rolled dough sheets. I floured the sheets one last time, then proceeded to run it through the spaghetti cutter.
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| Roma Wooden Pasta Drying Rack |
I had my handy Roma Pasta Drying Rack nearby to string my pasta onto. It was a good thing the rack was so sturdy because my recipe made even more than I had thought!
While my photos are a good start, this video by Weston is even more helpful on how to use the Roma by Weston Electric Pasta Machine:
Even with as much pasta as I made, it only took me about a half hour to make pasta from scratch.
In boiling water, my pasta was done in about two minutes. Just enough time for my family to come running down the stairs inquiring about the delicious smell. I could barely get it out of the pot before they began sticking their fingers into it and dangling strings into their mouths.
Now for the moment you’ve been waiting for – chocolate pasta. Once I made the dough, I repeated the same steps for my chocolate pasta as I did for the whole wheat pasta, this time feeding it through the Electric Pasta Machine’s fettucine cutter before placing it onto my Roma by Weston Pasta Drying Rack. Once I cooked it, I drained the chocolate fettucine and tossed it with Canaan Fair Trade Chili Pepper Infused olive oil rather than rinsing it with cold water. Did you know Italians originally got olive oil from the middle east? They did. And this Italian still does. I buy fair trade whenever possible. To learn more about fair trade, click here.
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I actually made my sauce first, but I knew my readers might die from anticipation so I got right to the chocolate pasta. For starters, I made a tart raspberry sauce by throwing two pints of raspberries into a Roma by Weston Sauce Maker with its Berry Screen attached. I also threw in a half of a lemon and a half a cup of confectioner’s sugar and then cranked out the perfectly blended sauce in under two minutes. 
Continuing with the theme of Pasta and Sauce for this week, I cooked up some Whole Wheat Pasta, smothered it with Pineapple Cream Pasta Sauce, and finished the evening off right with Chili Chocolate Fettucine with Raspberry Sauce.
