The dud parent, episode III (parental lessons)

Dylan has been talking up Codenames for a while now. We finally got a copy for home last week. Mom has played at work with her kids, so she explained the rules to us. We played a few times, but it didn't seem all that fun and we were wondering why Dylan was so fired up about it. Then Brad read the rules and we played the right way and we really liked it a lot. Last night, Brad and Cassie took Mom and I on, and we won three out of four games, which doesn't bring out Mom's better side, sportsmanship-wise. Mom said she couldn't wait to play with Dylan, since "there's not any more joy I get in life than beating Dylan at a game." As the adult parent in the family, let me just say what a bad lesson that imparts to you all.

With Cassie finally home for a change, we had a relaxed family game/TV night after enjoying the best meal I've made in a while: Fettuccine Alfredo with Homemade Spelt Fettuccine. The recipe is adapted from Ancient Grains for Modern Meals (2011) by Maria Speck. The recipe is a little complicated and has lots of useful tips and notes that were hard for me to summarize succinctly, but I did my best. You can see a condensed version of the recipe, with some good pictures, at Gather & Dine, where the author also used the same dough to make Kale Pesto Spelt Ravioli, which sounds really good.

A couple of points about the recipe for future reference. First, Speck says that if you are rolling out the dough into sheets using a pasta machine (I used the KitchenAid attachment that Ed gave me), "as a novice you might want to stop" on the third-to-last setting. Having passed the sheets through the second-to-last setting, I say go with the third-to-last setting whether you're a novice or not. You'll get a thicker piece of pasta with a superior bite, I think.

Second, pasta machines come with attachments for cutting the sheets into thinner spaghetti or thicker fettuccine. I wouldn't use those attachments; even the fettuccine is thin enough that it's hard to separate the cut pasta and keep it from clumping up while it's drying. Instead, cut the pasta by hand, as Speck recommends, into thicker ½-inch-wide pieces and it'll be easier to handle, and, again, you'll have a more satisfying experience when you bite into the pasta. Look at how thick the pasta is in the photos at Gather & Dine; that looks perfect to me.

Finally, you can skip cutting the sheets into individual strands altogether, and use the sheets to make the best lasagna (or ravioli) you'll ever have. Just cut the sheets to fit your lasagna pan and skip the store-bought lasagna. With homemade pasta sheets, you won't have to precook the pasta at all before you assemble and bake the lasagna.