Making Homemade Pasta

My friend Janis and I decided we needed to venture into the world of making homemade pasta, even though we can buy it at the store already made. There is something about making things from scratch. They taste better, or at least we think they do. Maybe its just the love we put into it that we taste. Whatever it is, there was definitely a sense of pride when we served our pasta. Even my 2 year old loved it! Although I'm not sure if he qualifies as a critic when he eats dirt too.

So for the menu, we made a batch of pasta, topped with two different sauces. I didn't realize the recipe made so much! Most of the pasta had a spaghetti sauce with Italian sausage in it. My favorite jarred sauce is Trader Joe's Tomato and Basil Marinara, about $2 a jar - very fresh and homemade tasting. The rest of the pasta was tossed with the leftover pesto sauce I had made from the Bruschetta Burger. Of course, no pasta meal would be complete without garlic bread and a salad.

Now, making fresh pasta is kind of an art form I guess, and I have no idea if we did it right. I did make it with my dad once, so it was probably right then, but since my son is allergic to eggs, I opted for an egg-free recipe. So I got my recipe from Mario Batalli, a fellow Italian and Food Network star, and like I said, we liked it. Find your own recipe and have fun cooking or buy packaged and have an extra glass of wine! If you do make fresh pasta, let me know how you do it. It would be nice to find another crazy person out there who things this is fun like me!

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/mario-batali/eggless-pasta-recipe/index.html


Follow the link above to the recipe that I found on Food Network's website. While we were waiting for the dough to rest, I was reading in one of my Italian cookbooks about tips with pasta. It was then I learned that kneading pasta on a wood is best to give it better elasticity and texture. However, we already kneaded it on the cold granite , which could have made it a tight, less elastic dough. Oops! Oh well, it still tasted great!

To form the pasta, I had a pasta maker from my family, that will flatten and cut the pasta into spaghetti or linguine noodles. If you don't have one, no worries. You can roll it out with a rolling pin, and then cut it with a sharp knife into noodles, or form bow ties, or any shape you want. This dough can also be used for raviolis. Which I hope one day to make again and add them to this site. Again, enjoy the pictures, and if you are willing to take the extra time, enjoy making fresh pasta!