Fresh Pasta!

Per my pasta making class post; I have fallen in love with fresh pasta. I have never really been a pasta lover (I actually don't really even like it) but have always wanted to learn to make fresh pasta. After the (very easy) amazing adult pasta making class at Taste Buds I pronounced to my husband that we needed to get the pasta roller/cutter attachments for our kitchen aid. After many conversation (and some convincing) we took the plunge and ordered the set on amazon (with gift cards; bonus).

Today was the day that it finally arrived; much to my surprise I got a text from my husband asking if I wanted to make pasta tonight together for dinner! I got home from work and we went right to work on the pasta adventure!

Fresh Pasta Dough -

• 3 cups flour
• 3 eggs
• 1 tsp olive oil
• 1 tsp salt
• water (if needed - we needed)

Directions for dough -

• Measure flour and add to a medium sized bowl. Make a hole in the middle of the flour (enough room to add the remaining ingredients). Add eggs, oil and salt.
• Start mixing the wet ingredients (in the middle of the bowl) with a fork until they are all mixed together. Little by little add flour with a fork from the sides (don't just try to mix everything together) until a sticky dough starts to form. Once you have a formed dough (sticky and not all the four is incorporated) you can start to knead with your hands. If mixture is too dry add water as needed to form a tight dough (not sticky).
• Knead for 10 to 15 minutes (until you have an elastic dough that is not sticky). If you have two or three people break the large dough ball up and let everyone kneed equal portions of the dough.
• Let rest for 30 minutes (this step is crucial)

Directions for Linguini pasta (I use the kitchen aid pasta attachment to create the pasta)-

• Once dough has rested form small balls to feed through the pasta machine
• Start with setting 1 and feed dough through (folding it in half every time) aprox 8 to 10 times. (Important - Make sure dough is not wet or sticky, if it is knead small dough ball and add flour so it is elastic and smooth). Setting 1 is important because its the final step to the kneading process
• Move to settings 2 - 4 feeding pasta through 2 times per setting
• Lay out do slightly dry (or on a pasta rack).
• Switch to the cutting attachment and feed through your sheets of pasta
• Boil water (and a 1 tsp of olive oil)
• Add cut pasta to water to cook (it only needs to cook for 3 to 4 minutes)
• EAT!!!

We decided to eat our linguini pasta with our homemade tomato sauce with ground turkey and brussel sprouts on the side.

A few tips:

• TIME - give yourself LOTS of time upon first attempt! It took us aprox an hour and a half from start to completed pasta on plate. I imagine it will get easier as we get use to it!
• MESS - be prepared to make a mess (and in our case use almost all of our dishes). We had flour everywhere.