Forks & Knives: Pasta Night !

Let me just begin by stating that I love PASTA! Especially when it’s homemade, it doesn't compare. Last week in my cooking class we made our very own pasts! I did overcook it a little but it was still edible and in my opinion yummy. Or maybe I was really hungry... who knows! But I did re-do them yesterday and they came out AWESOME! I will warn you it does take about 30 to 45 minutes for the process but it is worthwhile. I will include the recipe below but just to let you guys know you will need A LOT of FLOUR. The recipe is the exact one from my class but it does tend to be runny in the beginning. As you add all the ingredients together and begging to knead the dough, you will have to continuously add more flour to get it to the right consistency. I don't know the exact measurement of all of the flour I actually ended up using but you will see from my pictures what it should look like! By the way, I used a pasta roller which makes life MUCH MORE EASIER and yields more servings.

PS: This same pasta dough can be used to make lasagna or raviolis!

Ingredients:

Yields 4-6 servings

Eggs 3 1/2

Olive oil 1 Tsp

Salt 1 Tsp

All-Purpose Flour 5 oz

Semolina 5 oz

1. In a bowl, mix eggs, salt and oil together.

2. Combine the flour and semolina in a separate bowl and sift onto a clean working surface. (The sifting helps so that the flour won't get clumpy while you mix all the ingredients together)

3. Once the dry ingredients are sifted, create a pile on your working surface and make a hole in the center. You will be mixing the wet ingredients inside the hole.

4. Add the egg mixture a little at a time so that you may begin mixing in the flour dough.

-I wanted to do my pasta garlic and parsley flavored so I added a tsp of parsley and a tsp of garlic mashed up into the egg mixture.

5. Now here is where you have to eyeball your ingredients. Once everything is combined you will end up with mushy dough that looks like this:

Continue to add flour to the dough until it is not sticky anymore and you can begin to kneed it like pizza dough.

It should end up looking like this:

6. Now, the directions say to leave the dough resting covered in plastic wrap for about 20-30 minutes. But I was too hungry so I went ahead and ~~made the pasta~~ anyway. Shh!

7. To make it easier to handle, cut the pasta dough into 4 separate pieces.

8. With your pasta roller, have the roller set to the thickest setting so you can begin to flatten the dough out.

9. As you roll the dough, it will flatten out a little sticky so continue to add flour to it so it does not stick to the machine.

10. After rolling it through the thick setting, fold the dough into three so that it rolls out a little more proportioned.

11. Continue to roll the dough gradually decreasing the setting to a thinner one. I like to end with the thinnest setting so that you can see through the dough and very thin. This thin consistency will yield more pasta!

Cut the dough into the length you would like your pasta to come out.

12. After cutting the pasta into your preferred size, make sure you lay your pasta to rest on a sheet pan full of flour! This will help so that the pasta does not stick.

13. Once you have completed all of the pasta cutting, add the pasta into salted boiling water and cook for about 4 minutes or until Al dente. Your homemade pasta is done quicker than normal packaged pasta so keep an eye on it!

After you have cooked it, rinse it with water so that the flour is washed out and add a little bit of oil or butter so that your pasta does not stick. Mix it up with your favorite sauce and

enjoy!!