There’s nothing that beats the taste of a home-cooked meal. I read somewhere that when people start bringing home-cooked meals, it’s a subtle sign of recession, who knows? But one thing I know is that a home-cooked meal always tastes better and even restaurants/eateries go a long way to brand themselves “ tastes just like a home-cooked” or “Like Yo Mama's cookin”. So, whether it's a subtle recession sign or not, home-cooked meals will always have a special place in our life.

That’s why, these days I spend more time on developing recipes that I really like to eat. So, other than Korean or Japanese rice bowls, I love pasta. The only problem is that store bought pasta here tastes subpar.

Fine dining restaurants over here made their own pasta and that’s how pasta should be. So, since I don’t want to eat horrible pasta or dried pasta, I decided to make it my own,catering my palate.

To make fresh pasta (Pasta Fresca), all you need is an egg and 100g of flour, a pinch of salt, that’s just it.

This is the traditional way of making it and I learned it from here. You can also copy the recipe and have the best pasta of your life, definitely better than store bought.You also have to proof the dough for about 30 minutes to an hour.

We have a pasta machine at home and it made my whole job easier to cut the shape of pasta into something that I enjoy eating. My only problem at the time was not really flattening the dough properly. That’s why it turned out pretty thick as you can see above.

The problem is that it isn’t in the ingredients but we’re not creative enough working with those ingredients.

Then, I was teaching my mom how to make that pasta because we only have flour and a lot of eggs. At the same time, I was almost bored with just boiled eggs 😀so you know, the problem is that it isn’t in the ingredients but we’re not creative enough working with those ingredients.

Shaping rotini

For last night dinner, I was making a twist on Korean Rose Sauce with beef. It was the same way I made rose pasta with gochujang but this time, since we only have BBQ sauce in our pantry, we decided to make Smoky Chicken BBQ Pasta and that fits the pasta that we’re shaping today, which is rotini.

Did you know that different types of pasta works best for different sauces? Apparently, different shapes of pasta works best for different kind of sauces.It’s also something new that I learned and I am basically putting it to practice to also ensure that my dish isn’t just some cook and toss meal. I want to give the best respect to it.

Smoky Chicken BBQ Pasta

Unfortunately for the sauce, pretty much of the base is something I have in my pantry, store bought. I only added 3 cloves of garlic, cooked chicken, minced to add volume to it and toss my pasta into it.

The result is spicy, smoky and sweet bbq pasta. It’s unlike I’ve ever tasted but delightfully delicious. If you have never had smoky bbq pasta, just try it and it’s a great pairing with Iced americano and will definitely makes your day!

Through preparing dish like this, that reminds me that we actually have so much time. The real enemy is definitely distractions all around us. Well, for sure I can be lazy too but having to prepare meals on my own these days, I realized I have the best meal I’ve ever had and they don’t really take much of my time either. For this simple pasta dish, it takes about 60 minutes of my time from my entire day.

Ps : My mom now makes a great handmodel and she’s also learning something new because these dishes aren’t quite her thing 😀

That’s all for the dishes today, see you around with maybe a pasta, or something else 🙂