Let’s be honest with each other – the idea of eating from your preps is probably not all that appealing, right?  I mean, you’ve canned food and all kinds of freeze dried stuff that, while edible, isn’t usually that tasty.  But, what if I told you that you could have tasty fresh pasta right from the preps you already have?  Don’t believe me? Get ready to be proven wrong.

Fresh Pasta Ingredient List

The ingredient list for fresh pasta is made up of things you already are storing up in your preps:

• 2-3/4C All-Purpose Flour (plan on an additional 1C for dusting)
• 6 large eggs (at room temperature)
• 1Tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• 1Tsp Kosher Salt

You’re probably thinking that eggs aren’t in your long-term storage plan.  I’d be willing to be, however, that you would either have some on hand (you’re not raising chickens?) or be able to barter for some in a disaster.  I’ve also read that this recipe can be used by replacing the eggs with 1C of warm water.  I have never tried it, but it makes sense to me.

Directions

Making Fresh Pasta

1. Pile the flour in a large bowl.  Make a large depression in the center.
2. Crack the eggs into the center of the depression.
3. Add the oil and salt.
4. Using a fork, slowly beat the eggs while working in the flour until everything is fully combined.
5. If it’s a little dry, add some water.  If it’s a little wet, add some flour.  This recipe is not an exact science and it’s usually the difference in the size of eggs that causes changes every time you make fresh pasta with this recipe.
6. Flour your work surface (it helps if the work surface is cold) and place the dough on it.
7. Lightly flour your hands and knead the dough by pushing it away from you with the heel of your hand.  Knead away, fold in half, rotate clockwise and repeat.  Add flour as required.  This step should take about 5min but you want to make sure the dough is elastic and smooth.
8. Form the dough into a cylindrical shape and tightly wrap in plastic wrap.  Place in the fridge for at least 30 minutes (up to overnight).  In a grid down scenario where a refrigerator isn’t available, you can use any cool spot that you have available to you.
9. Remove the dough from the refrigerator and cut into 6 small chunks.
10. Dust a rolling pin and roll out each chunk into uniformly thick pieces (roughly 1/8″ or less thick).
11. Here is where you can diverge.  Traditionalists will use a knife to cut the fresh pasta into the desired thickness.  Others will use a pasta machine to roll out the pasta and cut it.  Both have their advantages – the traditional method is “free” in that all you need is a knife and the pasta machine will give you more uniform pasta and save you some work.
12. Uncurl the noodles once their cut, dust with flour and place on a flour-lined baking sheet.  Cover the noodles with a damp towel until you’re ready to cook.  Repeat until all the chunks are processed

Cooking Fresh Pasta

Fresh pasta cooks much quicker than store-bought dried options.

1. Bring a large pot of water to a rolling boil.
2. Add a tablespoon of salt and the pasta.
3. Stir a bit until the pasta is al-dente.  This step should only take 3-4 minutes.
4. Drain and serve immediately with your favorite sauce.

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Recommendations

Fresh pasta is possibly the easiest thing in the world to make in your kitchen.  It is a little time consuming with all the kneading, rolling and cutting but there is no large amount of culinary skill involved.  Anyone can do it and it’s a great meal to make with your kids – my daughters L-O-V-E making pasta with me.

You can go a million different places with pasta – anywhere from a traditional marinara to a white wine and butter sauce complimented with capers and lemons, or anywhere in the middle.  Fresh pasta can be used for any dish you’d use traditional dried pasta in – but I guarantee the fresh pasta will taste a hundred times better.

We typically will throw in some of our homemade tomato sauce (either fresh or from our stored goods) and spice it up with some fresh spices from Harvest Eating.  In addition, a nice wine always goes well with pasta.  I’m a sucker for a good Cabernet Sauvignon, but you can definitely go with a quality Chardonnay for dishes that are highlighted by fish or chicken.

Let us know how this recipe works for you!  We’d love to see pictures on Facebook!

When the weather is bone-chilling cold with gray skies, there’s nothing I crave more than a big bowl of steaming beef stew!  There’s just something warming and comforting about the smell of a slow-cooked stew that warms up your body and puts you in a calm mood.

Yeah, that’s great, but it’s a pain to make, right?  Wrong!  Beef stew is probably one of the easiest things in the world to make.  And, minus maybe a little bit of flour for browning the meat, it’s fairly healthy as well.  Come check out how we make snowy day beef stew on the Suburban Steader Suburban Homestead.

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Recommendation

Beef stew is one of those “stick to your ribs” meals that almost everyone loves.  It’s a pretty easy prep and can be a ‘set-it-and-forget-it’ type meal, freeing you up to do other things around the house.  The one tip I have for prep is to make sure you keep the heat quite low when browning the meat and sauteing the onions and garlic.  You want the bottom of the pan to be brown, not black, when you deglaze it.  Another thing to note is that sometimes this recipe can come out a little watery.  If what you end up with is a little too watery for you, take a few cups of the broth out, make a roux (try 2tbsp flour to 2tbsp melted butter), add to the broth and return to the stew.  That should thicken it up.

The recipe above is for a basic beef stew.  Feel free to change things up as you see fit.  Replace the onion with shallots, add other root vegetables like parsnips, turnips and even turnips if you want.  My wife says the mushrooms give it an earthy flavor so, if that’s not your thing, don’t add them.  What I’m getting at is that the recipe I provided is a fairly basic canvas.  Feel free to experiment and tweak it to make it your own.

In terms of serving, I go very simple.  Beef stew is, at its core, a simple dish and does not need a lot of flash added to it.  A nice piece of buttered sourdough bread goes quite well with it.  I recommend a glass of the red wine you used to deglaze the pan or a good craft beer be served alongside it as well.

Give this snowy day beef stew a shot and let us know how it worked out for you!

When you think of rustic, homestead-style cooking what is the first kind of breakfast you think of? If you’re like me, the first things that pop into your head are eggs, bacon and scratch pancakes.

Yes, I know I talked about how I try to eat as Paleo-centric as possible in this post.  That being said, sometimes you just need to kick back with some comfort foods.  Scratch pancakes are incredibly satisfying and easy to make.  Come check out how we make scratch pancakes on the Suburban Steader Suburban Homestead.

Scratch Pancakes Ingredient List

• 1-1/2c All-Purpose Flour
• 3-1/2tsp Baking Powder
• 1tsp Salt
• 1tbsp White Sugar
• 1-1/4c Milk
• 1 Egg
• 3tbsp Butter, Melted

NOTE: Links to recommended dry goods are located at the end of this post. We always recommend sourcing eggs, milk and butter locally if at all possible.

Directions

1. Sift the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar together into a big bowl.
2. Create a depression in the middle of the dry mixture and add the milk, egg and melted butter. Mix until smooth.
3. Put a griddle on medium-low heat. Well-oiled cast iron skillets work great for this recipe.
4. Melt a little butter in the skillet and scoop the batter onto the skillet using approximately a 1/4c for each pancake.
5. Brown on one side until the sides tuck under and bubbles appear uniformly across the pancake.
6. Flip and brown the opposite side.
7. Repeat until all batter is used up.
8. Serve warm with butter and maple syrup.

Recommendation

Pancakes are always a crowd pleaser, especially with a little bacon on the side. In fact, cooking the bacon in the cast iron skillet prior to making the pancakes will give you that little bit of ‘lubrication’ you’ll need to make flipping a breeze. Always be sure to clean any debris from the skillet in between rounds of pancakes. You may also need to add some butter here and there to reduce any sticking.

Pancakes are very amenable to additions. Don’t hesitate to add blueberries, chocolate chips, raspberries, bananas or even crumbled bacon to your mixture. A little vanilla in the mixture is also a great addition. Don’t be afraid to explore and experiment!

Give these scratch pancakes a shot this weekend and let us know how it worked out for you!

I spent some time this weekend cooking for the family and decided to make one of my favorite dishes – penne alla vodka. While it’s not one of the most rustic dishes I’ve ever made, I did use a cast iron skillet to make it so it has some ‘suburban homesteading credibility!’

I have made this dish a few times, slightly tweaking the recipe every time. This weekend’s version was the best yet and I decided to share it with you.

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Recommendations

This penne alla vodka dish is always a crowd-pleaser – whether you are cooking a romantic dinner for your better half or making dinner for a house full of guests.  Hearty and filling, it really hits the spot and goes great with a nice cabernet sauvignon or pinot noir.  Add a little fresh grated parmigiano-reggiano and you have a restaurant quality meal that you can make on a budget in about 45 minutes.

Even though this dish is great the way it is, there are a few ways to tweak it.  The first tweak is the amount of sausage you use.  Personally, we like a meal with a lot of meat so we use a full pound of sausage.  If you want more of a pasta dish without meat, try using a lesser amount like 3oz (2 links) of sausage.  Secondly, this dish has a slight hint of heat thanks to the red pepper flakes.  If you want a milder meal, remove the red pepper flakes and if you want a bit spicier meal, use hot sausage and take the red pepper flakes out of th recipe.  Whatever you do, don’t use spicy sausage AND red pepper flakes.  I made that mistake once and it caused the dish to be super hot and not very enjoyable.

Go and try this spicy penne alla vodka recipe and let us know how it worked out for you!