Making Homemade Pasta and a Recipe

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You might remember me posting recently about the opportunity to review a product from CSN Stores.  If you aren't yet familiar with CSN Stores, and what they have available, they offer almost anything you can think of in their online stores.  Are you looking for new barstools to update your kitchen?  Check out their Home Bar Furniture.  Looking for cookware?  Check out their huge selection of cookware, which includes a great selection of Le Crueuset and All-Clad (two of my favorite brands).  Are you in the market for a pasta machine?  They have those too! 

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After much deliberation, I finally decided on this pasta machine.

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I did some research before deciding on this particular model.  It had great reviews (both on CSN and other sites), and it is made in Italy.  If you are going to buy a pasta machine, it might as well come from Italy, right?  The machine comes with an attachment to make both spaghetti and fettuccine, and also has optional attachments for other types of pasta.  I'd love to add a few more attachments in the future.

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The ingredients for fresh pasta are surprisingly simple.

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- 2-3/4 cup flour (I used my special Italian "00" flour)

- 3 eggs

- 1 teaspoon salt

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To make the dough, do not use a bowl.  Put the flour right on your counter or baking mat.  Make a well in the center of the flour.  Sprinkle salt on top.

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Slightly beat the eggs and add pour into the center of your flour well.

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I didn't get many pictures of the dough making process because when I poured my eggs in the flour they started leaking through and I had to be quick and make sure I got everything incorporated! 

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Work the eggs into the flour, at first with a fork, and then your hands.  Knead until dough is soft and pliable.

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Look at that pretty dough!

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Let dough rest for 30 minutes at room temperature.

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Cut dough into 6 equal parts.

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Now it's time to use the pasta machine.  To use the machine it needs to be clamped to a table or edge of a counter.  My machine has 6 different settings on it.  You start by passing through a piece of dough on the widest setting a few times and then reduce the setting one by one until you reach the desired thickness of pasta.

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You will end up with dough that looks like this:

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Next, I attached the pasta cutting part of the machine.  I decided to make fettuccine.

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Just start turning the crank and out comes perfectly cut pasta!

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At this point, I was pretty much in awe of this little machine - I couldn't believe I was making pasta and it was actually turning out!

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This was so much easier than I thought it would be.

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I laid the pasta on a towel draped over one of my dining room chairs to dry.  It was a funny sight to see all this pasta drying on chairs around my kitchen!  They actually sell drying racks like this one at Sur La Table.  I can see myself needing one of those!

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Let pasta dry for 20 minutes.
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{ If not eating cooking immediately, keep strands flat on baking sheet lightly dusted with flour ; cover tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight. }
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So the pasta is done, now on to the recipe.  Actually, it's not so much of a recipe as it is a list of ingredients.  I make this pasta quite a bit because I usually have all the ingredients on hand and I don't have exact measurements for everything - I just sort of throw everything together depending on what I have and how much I have of it.

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Ingredients:
- olive oil
- two or three cloves of garlic, diced
- 1 red pepper, diced
- 1 yellow pepper, diced
- kalamata olives, sliced
- 1 can of artichoke hearts, chopped
- tomato sauce*
- freshly grated Parmesan
- -fresh basil for garnish
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*Tomato Sauce - I used a jar of my homemade, canned tomato sauce, but a jar of store bought sauce will also work.
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Add a couple tablespoons of olive oil, and garlic and to a pan.  Cook for a few minutes or until the garlic starts to turn a golden color.
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Add red and yellow pepper and cook until peppers are soft.
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Add tomato sauce, olives, and artichoke hearts.  Cook until everything is heated through.
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{It appears that I stopped taking pictures of the sauce at this point; I must have been really hungry!}
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In the meantime, boil your pasta.  Isn't the fresh pasta beautiful?
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Here's what the pasta looked like when it was finished:
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Drain pasta and return to pot.  Add sauce to pasta and mix together.
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Top with Parmesan and fresh basil.
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If you are looking for more detailed information about making homemade pasta, Martha Stewart's Cooking School book has great, step by step photos.
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The fresh pasta was delicious (and easy!) and I know I'll be making a lot of it in the future.
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Buon Appetito!

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