Pasta

  Tonight we had our pasta party. I had four great helpers, My two boys, Troy (24), Jake (19), then my two nephews, Dakota(14) and Zach (9). If you didn't really think about it my sister's two and my two are all five years apart. Troy is five years older than Jake, Jake is five years older than Dakota, and Dakota is five years older than Zach. Dakota figured this out when he was five, and tells everybody still today. Dakota and Zach have autism, we love them so very much. They are as close to me as my own two sons are.

  Now back to our party. Before my nephews got here, I placed some chicken quarters in the oven at 350 degrees and cooked them 35 minutes covered, and uncovered until they were brown. Jake made a spinach pesto. He took 4 cups of spinach, about 2 cups of fresh basil, 3 cloves garlic, 2 green onions, 1/4 cup fresh grated Parmesan, about 1/3 cup olive oil, salt, and pepper in a food processor, combined until it was well mixed, and creamy. He may have added more oil. Troy helped with some of the prep. When My sister and the boys came over, Zach and I got started on the pasta dough. An important thing to remember is not to let the 9 year old autistic kiddo read the recipe. He did great cracking the eggs, but when it came to the amount of the water he added 1 cup instead of 2 tbls. He did the olive oil, and salt just right, so we added more flour to balance out the water. Our dough turned out soft, but still tasted okay, it did clump together though. We then made the spinach pasta, and he did that great (I was reading the recipe this time). We let the pasta rest, that was the hard part...lol Next I turned the boys and dough over to Jake.

                                                                 They did a great job!

 While the boys were busy making the pasta, I started my quick sauce, I took 2 tbls olive oil, heated it, then added 1 small yellow onion chopped, mini carrots sliced, I let those cook until tender, then added 6 mini sliced sweet peppers, mushrooms, and minced garlic. I let all that get fragrant. I then deglazed the pan with 1 cup white wine, cooked thta for about 1 minute, then added 2 cups of chicken broth. I let that reduce by 1/2, then added 1 container of grape tomatoes, covered, just until the tomatoes burst. I then finished it with fresh basil and spinach. I let it simmer until the pasta was done. I then turned the stove over to my 2 boys, Troy has the green hair and Jake red. They cooked the pasta, and then added it to the sauces. One other sauce I had was a jar white sauce, that's all Zach will touch.

 Here is the 2 pastas, not a great picture, but it tasted great! It's something that we will have to keep practicing making.

Here are the 4 boys all together after eating their great dinner!