Homemade Basil Linguine to Celebrate Herb Season {Naptime Everyday}
What’s Going on Today: First day of no school (thank goodness for camp next week!) Basil plant is exploding.
Naptime Goals: Make pasta and leave to dry.
Tonight’s Menu: Basil Linguine, Garlic Chicken, Artichokes.
Once again, the summer herb pot is exploding. I don’t want to give myself too much credit, but man, I know how to manage an herb pot. The only problem is that lately it has been growing a little too well and now instead of tiny plants I have enormous bushes of fresh healthy herbs! Taking advantage of all this flavor goes beyond flavoring soups and salads. It means adding large amounts of big dishes which is why for our first day of summer vacation my daughter and I decided to make homemade basil linguine.
I’ve come to love the set of KitchenAid pasta attachments my husband gave me for Mother’s Day last year. It has taken me a while to learn how to use them properly, but now I’ve gotten quite good at it. With my daughter at my side – she elected to skip quiet time as a way to ring in summer – we made a quick dough in the food processor. Then, we kneaded it just a little more by hand to get the perfect elasticity. The ball had a beautiful spring green color to it and our whole kitchen smelled like basil for the better part of an hour.
To finish up the pasta we ran the noodles through the pasta maker and let them dry on the counter for the rest of the afternoon. At dinner we boiled up the fresh pasta in minutes, served it with chicken, and enjoyed a fresh summer meal. Best of all, after the large batch of pasta our basil plant was cut back to a normal size. For now.
Recipe
Homemade Basil Linguine
Ingredients
| 2 | cups fresh basil leaves, washed and dried |
| 3 | cups all-purpose flour |
| 2 | eggs |
| 3 | teaspoons olive oil |
| ¼ | cup water |
Instructions
1. In a food processor chop the basil leaves until very fine. Then add the flour, eggs, olive oil, and water and process again until a smooth ball forms. It is needs to be a little damper add more water by the teaspoon.
2. Turn the dough ball out onto a floured surface and knead with your hands a few times until the dough is very smooth. Then divided into four equal portion and roll it out to ¼-inches thick and only as side as your pasta maker. Run the dough through the pasta maker to cut the noodles. Spread them on a clean kitchen towel and let them air dry in a cool, dry area of your kitchen for at least one hour.
3. To cook, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cook the noodles until they float to the top, about 5 minutes at the most. Drain and serve!
Naptime Notes
Naptime Recipe Serving ideas
These noodles taste like a bit like pesto. Toss them with a little melted butter, Parmesan, and toasted pine nuts to recreate the full pesto flavor! I also serve them with roasted cherry tomatoes for a fun, easy summer meal.
Naptime Stopwatch
15 minutes prep time, 1 hour drying time
Naptime Reviews
These got rave reviews from my family. Next time I think I’ll try this with the parsley which is growing like crazy!
More Naptime Recipes
LOVE pesto! I started growing my own basil plant and I’m (im)patiently waiting for it to get large enough to start harvesting.