making your own pasta is undoubtedly one of those labor of love things, and if you have the time and interest to devote to it, it is beyond worth it. i tried it for the first time, a while back, before my kitchen aid mixer days, and it was basically a disaster. (yes, i still ate it). but since then, i’ve procured a trusty stand mixer and the pasta roller attachment, tried (and failed) a few more times, found a recipe that works for me, figured out how to troubleshoot a few common pasta issues, and even learned how to make it by hand a little better, too. (but don’t do that if you have a mixer and/or aren’t an italian grandma). i’d even say that i’ve officially moved out of the “i will suffer through making this because i know it will taste so good” phase and into the “i actually enjoy doing this let’s pour wine and turn on the record player too” phase.

so a couple weekends ago after just having lamented that we hadn’t made homemade pasta in a while, and that we should sometime soon, we found ourselves in whole foods, where there was a convenient one-day-only sale on lobster tails. we snatched two right up, had them butterflied in the store, picked up a few other ingredients, and started dreaming up that night’s dinner.

we don’t really cook a lot of meat/seafood and it’s not something i consider myself good at, so when i say that cooking lobster was pretty easy and you can do it without royally messing it up, i mean it. so the next time you find yourself in the grocery store and there’s a sale on lobster tails, you should a) not be afraid, b) get some, and c) have them butterfly them for you in the store because i don’t know how to tell you how to do that.

this is such a great summer dish for a saturday night where you want to do something kind of fancy but you want to do it in your pajamas. in other words, it’s a dish for all the saturday nights. anyways, the fresh pasta with basil mixed in, colorful cherry tomatoes, and buttery lobster, all topped off with parsley and parmesan, is such an awesome combo. hope you’ll try it!

suggested beer pairing: boulevard saison-brett.