Homemade Pasta

When my husband's mom passed away, we were sorting her things and I found a hand crank pasta machine. Decided to try my hand at making homemade noodles just last year, wow... it's fun and so delicious. I think it would be hard to do if I didn't have the machine, because it sheets the pasta into uniform sheets that are the same thickness then I change where the handle is and it cuts the sheets into fettuccine noodles. I make these noodles to go with the Chicken and Noodles recipe on this blog and the Alfredo Sauce recipe here. It is so much better than dried pasta! This makes 1 lb of dough, which is enough for one big fairly large pot of noodles. I can't wait until my nephew is here and he can help me make pasta...he will love it!

Simple Pasta Dough:

2 cups plain flour

1/4 tsp salt

3 large eggs at room temperature

I use my food processor for this. Put the flour and salt in the processor and zing it together. Add the eggs and zing it around until the mix is combined and just barely coming together. It will look crumbly. Turn it all out onto a lightly floured board and squish it all together into a ball. Knead until it is nice and smooth, this takes 5 minutes, sometimes more. It should not be sticky at this point, if it is, add a little flour and continue kneading. Wrap in plastic wrap and leave on the counter to rest for 1 hour. Roll in batches through the sheeter, I trim the rough edges off and re-roll them. Feed the sheets through the cutter of the machine. Noodles!

This pasta takes a while to cook to where my husband likes it, which is more than al dente. I like firmer pasta, but he doesn't, so it take s about 15-20 minutes for this to cook to the tenderness we can agree on. But even fully cooked, this pasta has a texture that is so much better than any dried pasta, it's so good.