Homemade Fettuccine with a Blush Fire Roasted Tomato Basil Seafood Sauce

Yesterday I wrote about my first adventure using my new KitchenAid® pasta sheet roller and fettuccine cutter attachments.  Both attachments were beyond incredibly easy to use.  I was at the ease of use and the results!  The next thing on my mind was the taste.  Trust me, there is no need to go through a bit of extra work only to end up with a product that doesn't taste better than store bought.

Earlier this year we enjoyed a delicious meal at a local restaurant that featured a blush seafood sauce topping linguine.  I set out to clone that recipe then I tweaked the seafood sauce slightly to use my gourmet home canned fire roasted tomato basil sauce, crab meat, cod and scallops then up scaled the garnish to use pan seared shrimp and scallop.  The end result is a mouth watering sauce perfect for topping homemade fettuccine.  It is light yet filling,  packed full of rich flavour while being lower in calories than a traditional spaghetti meat sauce.

The fettuccine took about 7 minutes to cook to al dente.  While it looked like cooked dried or store bought fresh in terms of colour and texture, the proof was in the tasting.  The taste of this  fettuccine was incredible!  It had a freshness that dried pasta can't achieve and none of the chemical flavour of store bought fresh pasta.  An added bonus as with many homemade foods, there was no pesky packaging to have to deal with.  In fact, this meal resulted in very little going into the garbage.  There was no packaging and only the shrimp and crab shells had to be discarded although the shrimp shells might have been ok in the compost as there were only six of them.  This is the time of year I keep and grind all egg shells possible for the garden.  They add calcium while controlling slugs and snails.

It is important to realize that home cooking has a positive effect on the environment.  A vast portion of waste from home cooking can go into the compost, resulting in very little going into the landfill.  It really is a win win by home cooking.  You get good, healthy, less expensive food while lessening your carbon footprint.  Nothing wrong with that in my book and quite frankly it is one more reason to cook from scratch at home!