Dough!

That's 'Dough', as in 'Doh!", Homer Simpson style. But I guess if I have to explain that, it probably isn't the best title. Oh well. I have been TRYING to write this post for almost a week, but the photo uploader was being a huge jerk, and this post kind of relies on photos. List item #13, Make My Own Pasta is complete!!

So, my mom got a pasta maker from my grandmother for Christmas one year. She's never used it. My grandmother died in 2000, so this thing is at least 13 years old. A few years ago I asked my mom if I could have it. Then I proceeded to never use it. When I was thinking of a good replacement list item when I nixed the photography class, and since I've been trying to eat fewer processed and pre-packaged foods, I thought I'd give making my own pasta a try.

It was an interesting process, but worth it, and definitely something I'd do again. I found the recipe on Pinterest (surprise, surprise), but I'm going to try a different one next time. It tasted good in the end, but only after I modified the recipe a bit.


These are the ingredients. Yup, that's it. 4 cups of flour, 4 eggs and some salt. Or so the instructions say...

You put the flour and salt in a pile on the table/cutting board and make a well in the middle.

Apparently my well wasn't big enough. Have you ever tried to clean egg and flour up with your bare hands? Well, I have and it's not easy, I can tell you. 

This is what I ended up with after following the recipe. Doesn't look much like dough to me. So I added another egg and about 1/4 cup of water and it seemed to work.

I formed it into a ball.

Then I wrapped it in plastic and put it in the fridge for half an hour. Then I realized the recipe just said to let it sit for half an hour, not in the fridge, but it all worked out.

While the dough was chilling I got out the pasta maker. Note the Christmas tag still on the top of the box...

In trying to clamp it to the table I discovered that my table wasn't thick enough. Here you see the clamp as small as it will go, still much too big for the table. And no, I didn't think to put a piece of wood in there until just now, so it was a pretty wobbly experience.

Here it is. It doesn't have a whole lot of settings, but you can roll out sheets for ravioli or lasagna, or you can use the back like I did and make fettuccine or spaghetti. 

I took my dough out and cut it into 4 pieces like the instructions said. At this point it looked pretty close to the picture in the recipe.

And then I started rolling. It reminded me a lot of the slab roller at my pottery class. At this point (especially since it wasn't clamped down) I think a second pair of hands would have been useful, but alas, I live alone.

I finally got fed up with the rocking pasta maker so I searched the workshop until I found the world's tiniest clamp. It helped a little.

After rolling it through several times I ended up with these delightful sheets of pasta.

Not sure what happened here...I even tried squishing it up and re-rolling it, but no dice.

And then I covered my kitchen in pasta...

The cutters didn't cut properly though, so it ended up being double-wide fettuccine, but it does the job.

So here are the little scrappies that I cooked up and ate with a little bit of salt and butter. SOOO yummy!!

I bagged up the rest and froze it for later use. It's more filling that regular pasta so it goes a lot farther.

I used it a couple of days later with my cauliflower alfredo. The pork chop wasn't very good though...








And so there it is!! I definitely recommend everyone try it. Maybe not the recipe I used, but it's not nearly as hard as you might think!