Homemade Pasta

We really enjoy the flavor of homemade pasta.  Yes, it's easier to just buy boxes or bags of pasta from the grocery store...and sometimes we do that, too.  But as with most things, you can't beat the taste of homemade!  I will admit that prior to having our pasta attachments for our stand mixer, we didn't make pasta nearly as often.  Having the right equipment to make the job go faster and easier makes all the difference in the world.  I managed to snag this set for 70% off the retail price thanks to some savvy planning and shopping, and we have definitely gotten our money's worth out of it.  There are manual rollers/presses that are just as effective as these attachments and that's a great option for those who need to stick to a budget.  (Don't we all!)

I'm going to share our basic pasta dough recipe and then show you a variety of ways in which to prepare the pasta.

Ingredients:

2 c. flour
1/2 tsp. salt
2 beaten eggs
1/3 c. water
1 tsp. olive oil

As usual, place the dry ingredients in your mixing bowl and give them a quick whirl to combine.

In a small bowl or measuring cup, combine the wet ingredients.  (Note that the photos for this recipe show a doubled amount.)

Go ahead and mix these ingredients for about 8-10 minutes, until the dough is smooth and elastic.  (It won't be as stretchy as bread dough.)

Cover and allow the dough to rest on a lightly floured surface for 10 minutes or so.

Divide the dough into quarters. (Or eighths if you are doubling! ;))

Take one piece of the dough (covering the rest so they don't dry out) and gently press down and lightly coat each side with flour.

At this point, make sure your dough press is set up and ready to go.

Using the attachment on the stand mixer is a cinch.  The knob on the right has numbers on it.  When you start out with your slightly flattened (by hand) lump of dough, you want the knob to be set at the number 1.  You'll run the dough through the press 2 or 3 times until it's smooth and elastic.

Once your dough is smooth and running through the number 1 setting well, change the knob to the number 2 and run the dough through again.  Next, switch it to 3 and then to 4.  I don't typically make my pasta any thinner than this--it's thinner than you can roll it by hand, and that's good enough for me!  Here is a comparison picture so you can see how far one ball of dough can stretch when it's placed through the number 4 setting.

At this point, you decide what kind of pasta you are going to make.  For instance, do you want to make lasagna?  Then keep the sheets of pasta as they are and cut them in half to fit into a 9x13" pan.  (It's not necessary to cut them into standard lasagna size pieces that you get in a box, unless you really want to spend the time to do that!)

Perhaps you want to make spaghetti or fettuccine.  I made some fettuccine using the attachment again, but it's easy enough to take a pizza cutter or a knife and cut strips through the pasta sheet.  Don't limit yourself to using these for a typical Italian meal.  While this tastes great with red sauce or white sauce, it also tastes great in chicken soup!

Maybe a filled pasta, such as ravioli, is what sounds good.  It's very easy to fill pasta by layering one sheet of pasta over the top of a second sheet with the filling in between.

Definitely give homemade pasta a try.  You won't be disappointed!  As an added bonus, fresh pasta cooks up much faster than the dry kind from the store, usually in 3-5 minutes!