Home-Made Pasta

One of my favourite wedding gifts was a pasta maker attachment to go onto my Kitchenaid stand mixer.

While it takes some time, making pasta is actually a really enjoyable activity. It's sort of like playing with playdoh, but it tastes a whole lot better!

I have read many different rules of thumb for making pasta. Some say one egg per 3/4 cup of flour, while others say two eggs per cup of flour. What's a new cook to do? So this time, I added two eggs, and then slowly added the flour until I felt like it had the right consistency and I think I've really discovered that elusive "you'll know by the feel" that other chefs (I say that like I'm a chef, too) talk about!

After making my dough, I let it rest for 30 minutes.

Then I cut the ball into quarters and took one piece to run through the pasta maker, leaving the other pieces covered so they wouldn't dry out.

I ran it through the machine a lot, each time, folding it into a tri-envelope fold and then running the "open" end through the machine.

Once I had all the "sheets" of pasta, I covered them in flour, covered them with a dish towel to rest again for another 20 minutes.

Now, the fun part. Take each sheet and run it through the pasta cutter.

Let rest again for another 20 minutes or so and then cook in salted boiling water for 3-5 minutes.

Don't have a pasta maker? Pioneer Woman tells you how to make pasta without one.

And of course, my sous-chef was instrumental.

Don't have a sous-chef? Not to worry, he wasn't really that helpful.