Holderman's for the Holidays

Just like our annual get together with the guys, we also like to get together with Sharon and Andy for the holidays. Sharon and I had recently talked about how much fun making pasta was with the guys years ago, and decided we should try that for our get together this year. Sharon and Andy hadn't made pasta before, so it should be a fun experience...and it gets everyone together in the kitchen chatting and having fun, working together on the dinner we'd be dining on shortly...

Granted, as soon as I put the piles of flour down on the SUPER clean countertops, Sharon had to start misbehaving... (Santa's watching!)


They were each given two eggs to crack into their two cups of flour...


I was in charge of giving instructions...


What!? That's a real job!!!


Oh! And I was also in charge of pouring tablespoons of water as needed. And water makes things...well, YOOOOOU know - it makes things "moist". And here you can see the look Sharon's giving Andy after he dropped the m-word she hates so much!


Andy worked like a pro at this! Probably helps that he's got big hands (my what big hands you have Andy!). His dough also needed more water than Sharon's - not sure what that was about.


Just like the dainty little girl she is, Sharon hated getting her hands icky.


Once the dough was all mushed together thoroughly, it just needed to be patted together and given at least twenty minutes to rest. Sharon patted her dough while Andy and Brett played on the iPod.


A short while later, it was time to start crankin'! You take roughly a quarter of the dough and run it through the pasta cranker repeatedly on the widest setting, folding it over, rolling it again, until it's more uniform in texture.


See? They're crankin'!!



Then you can start reducing the space between the rollers, and before you know it...


Ta-daaaaaaaaa! So Sharon and Andy rolled out all their dough, with Brett lightly dusting between the layers.



Yup, it's true - even Brett was working on making pasta - see?!




And then it was time to cut the dough. I only have one pasta cutter attachment that's fettucini-sized, so Andy used that...


...while Sharon went old-school on that pasta, giving it a slightly more rustic look. To be honest, she was way more perfect than I would've aimed for. If I'd been cutting, there'd be diagonally noodles, squiggly ones, etc...


Brett's catching Andy's noodle (heh heh)...


And here it looks like Andy's making pasta with Brett arm. Mmmm - tasty!


I took charge of the cooking - boiling up water to untangle the pasta into...


And sauteeing lightly breaded/seasoned chicken breasts that I'd pounded out.


Everything's better with cream, right?


Mmmm....homemade pasta - and it cooks so fast too!


The chicken breasts were monstrous. First pounded, then sprinkled with salt and pepper, and then tossed around in a mixture of flour, fresh-grated parm, plus dried parsley and oregano. Oh, and some homegrown rosemary cut from the overwintering plant in the basement. After they fried up in olive oil and butter, I added a couple glugs of white wine, a little chicken broth and some whipping cream (I honestly can't find just heavy cream anywhere!).


Dinner also included corn (for Andy, who rarely eats other veggies), freshly steamed broccoli (for Sharon, who rarely gets it), and we decided there wasn't enough sauce from the chicken so we cheated and cracked open a jar of red sauce to supplement the pasta. Chow time!


After dinner we exchanged presents. Brett was excited about the box for a cheese mill - but there was no cheese mill inside!


Instead Sharon and Andy got us a very-Doogie-like ornament to help celebrate Doogie's first Christmas! Thanks guys!


You can't see here, but we got Sharon and Andy a two-part ornament (sort of) - a small gold frame with a picture of them from their wedding, plus a dancing Santa glass-bulb with VERY glittery pants.


Doogie didn't mind not getting gifts - he chilled out in front of the fire.


My gift was a really cool bird bath - I've wanted one for quite awhile, so this was great! You can see it in the picture on the box - off-white with colored-tile designs. It's not huge, but will tuck into the landscaping nicely, and should really pop out against the green background of plants.


Here's just a picture of Brett looking really cute.


Sharon received a small assortment of gifts to help her in the kitchen (bread cookbook, measuring cups) and card making/stamping (glue pen, glue dots, rubber stamps, etc).


Again, Doogie was worn out from the gift exchange, and just enjoyed chilling out with Andy...



Merry Christmas!