Pasta, Pesto and ... Pinot

This is not a post about baking, but rather about homemade pasta and pesto. And about a fantastic Pinot Noir (2008) from the Okanagan Valley. A sunny Sunday evening that makes for a good end of our week - and that promises sunshine in Vancouver for the coming days. Finally! We all needed it.

Pasta 

Pasta is so much fun to make. And so easy too. Unlike with baking bread, you don't even have to plan ahead. If you have some eggs and flour at home, you can start right away: Use one egg for every hundred grams of flour, which should result in a very stiff dough. Kneading it properly is quite a bit of work, but you need to develop the gluten really well. You want your dough to feel smooth and silky, not rough and floury. Wrap the dough in saran wrap and let it rest in the fridge for at least an hour before making it into pasta. You can turn it into anything you wish: ravioli, spaghetti, fettuccini, lasagna sheets, etc. You can either dry your pasta or cook it right away in plenty of boiling salt-water until al dente. Serve fresh.

Pesto

We very rarely find commercially available pestos that we really like. We rather stick to fresh and homemade pestos. All sorts of them. And we love them. For this Sunday evening it was the classic pesto alla genovese, made from fresh basil, Grana Padano, pine nuts, garlic, salt, pepper and olive oil. Sweet!

and ... Pinot

We love to get our wines from our friend Michael, who runs a wine shop in Kitsilano that offers only BC wines. The Pinot Noir was already open from the night before and now even better after having all that time to breathe. The flavours came out very nicely and subtle; it has a very well-structured medium body with notes of red plum, cherry and tobacco. Give it a try!