Girl Scouts and Homemade Pasta

It's Girl Scout weekend at our house.  I have been blessed to work with many wonderful girls over the years in Girl Scouts and I have enjoyed them all.  Katie, Christina, Taylor, Sarah, Tess, Keryn, Madie and Katie (oh, snap, I think I even listed them from oldest to youngest) have all been in troops that I have led and they have all been fun and a blessing to work with.  I am currently co-leading a Senior troop of three girls:  Phoenix, Maria, and McKiya.  As always, we are having a blast!  I have also been blessed with great parents and volunteers to work with (Sue and Pam, you two were dreams to work closely with; Tina and Tami were always committed as well).  I am now in cahoots with Mrs. Patty (Pinkie!). 

The girls are spending the weekend working on their new blog (http://www.troop401-weretrippin.blogspot.com/) where they will journal about their adventures and their work (fundraising mainly) toward their Senior trip in 2015.  Well....go on...open another browser tab and check out that blog....I'll wait for you to come back.....

OK, now that you're back....besides working on their blog and discussing their trip, they helped me in the kitchen.  Tonight we broke in my new pasta attachment for my Kitchen Aid mixer (oh that is my favorite kitchen toy!).  I made a bolonese sauce (from scratch) with a hearty mix of onions, celery, carrots and bell peppers....ground beef and sweet italian sausage.

Yum!  It should be slow cooked ALL day....we got a few hours in is all, but it was still very good and the girls loved it.

For our first pasta try, I used a pasta mix from Williams-Sonoma.  It makes 4 servings, but it was plenty for a total of 6 of us.  It was suggested we try a mix first to get use to the proper consistency.  Smart idea!  The girls helped to knead the dough and make the dough into walnut size balls.

OK, you can't see the dough....but that's what they're doing...and a fine job, I must say.  Then we attached the pasta hopper and started making some rigatoni.

See the pasta coming out of the end of the white hopper?  And you know the Cowboy was behind them watching too.  He loves him some pasta!  Now he can have it fresh (and healthy - lots of wheat/brown rice pasta in our future).

There it is boiling.  You'd think I'd get a picture of the finish product but sadly, no....we were all hungry and scarfed it before I had a chance to get a picture.  Next time!  But trust me, it was good.

Now the girls are working on henna tattoos.  They're going to a Girl Scout lock-in later in the month and will be hosting a henna tattoo booth to help raise funds for their Senior trip.  And where are they going?  I think it will be Montana for hiking, camping, white water rafting, swimming, shopping and all those things that Girl Scouts do!