My Attempt at Homemade Pasta ...it really is easy!

Pin It

Well, I am don't have to work until tomorrow, so I am going to attempt to use my new handy dandy pasta machine I got last week. I love new kitchen toys!  I watched Giada make it using her food processor and she made it look so easy.  I have grown to love this chick, even thought her selective accent drives me nuts.  Just say Parmesan like you say everything else hunny..lol.   She also used a Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer attachment to make it..looks great but pricey and I was told, it not only is hard to control when its moving on its own (you can't back up) but it puts a lot of wear and tear on the motor of your stand mixer and I baby my mixer...I got it for mixing. 

In any case, Giada made this pasta in her food processor and of course, now I cannot find the recipe and I deleted the show from the DVR...darn it.  Looking through the links on Food Network has become a time consumer for me, so I am going to just wing it using my From Biba's Italian Kitchen cookbook.  She used to be on PBS, her and Mary Ann  Esposito where the first two cooking shows I watched. Some of their cookbooks (linked) are so inexpensive on Amazon because they are older books, but surely treasures to have.  Biba  Caggiano grew up in Italy, so to me, that's Italian. There are a lot of Americanized Italian recipes, having come from Italy but slightly tweaked by each generation. 

Biba has five pages on pasta making in her From Biba's Italian Kitchen book. She has directions for making it by hand, in food processor, in mixer, etc and even making spinach and tomato pasta....I am thinking of making it this way?  Hmmm.   Maybe my first batch will be regular and then spinach (I should have done this last week for St. Patty's day!).

Now, to make cut pasta (fettuccine or something) or  stuffed pasta...ravioli?  I could even make lasagna and make it easy, just sheets of pasta.  hmmm?

Fettuccine Alfredo it is lol
 ***********************************************************************

I put 3 Cups of unbleached all purpose flour in my food processor...in a bowl, combined 4 eggs and 1 T course salt and 1 T olive oil in a bowl, whisked together and then I dumped it in the food processor.  Pulsed a few times, then whirled it on full speed for a minute.  Looked like a course cornmeal.  I dumped it onto a floured board and kneaded it for about 3 minutes into a smooth ball.  Wrapped in plastic and let set for 30 mins (good time to get the water pot ready and start on the sauce.

I cut the dough into sections and flatten out slightly.  roll it on setting one through the pasta machine...fold in half, roll again, three or four times. Then, onto setting two, two times...then three, and four all the way to six.
Switch my handle to the cutting machine...and cut the fettuccine...hubby said, next time, cut it smaller first...they were 2-5 feet long lol.

This recipe made about  the equivalence of a one pound box of pasta.

 That is the background there is my key lime tree I am growing...While making a margarita one day, I was cutting a key lime and decided to put that seed in the post my grandmother had given me before they moved to Texas (the plant that was in it had just died, didn't like that window I guess).  Anyway, the key lime tree thrives there. I am always pruning it back. Don't ya love the retro red board wall?  My whole kitchen, wainscot and radiators and all were painted fire engine red when I bought my house. I vowed to keep some red for the woman we purchased the house from who was 91 and going into an old age home (and she was born in this house, tell me my well water is bad? LOL)

I was so excited and proud of myself that I made pasta.  I attempted it years ago, when my husband and I lived in a tiny apartment and had a kitchen the size of a box lol.  I had no pasta machine, nor did I have a food processor...talk about rustic pasta lol.

For my next trick, homemade lasagna...maybe after work tomorrow!  I had so much fun, I surely won't let the cobwebs develop on this kitchen toy!  I am very glad I was warned to be wary of the kitchen aid attachment because I don't think I cold have kept up with it.