Unintentionally starting my recipe goal!
Thursday night I unintentionally started my quest to try 52 new recipes this year!
One of our go-to meals on busy nights is spaghetti using our homegrown, home canned tomato sauce. This is an “easy” button I gladly push - often I'll grab a bag of frozen veggies to warm up and add to the meal and within a half hour dinner is served!
It was nearing 5:30 and after a busy work day I decided spaghetti sounded perfect. I go to the pantry…no spaghetti.
Yes, even Laura Thompson, queen of all things homegrown and homemade, uses boxed pasta!
The meat was already cooking, so I started thinking of a back up plan. We live far enough out of town that if there is an ingredient not on hand, we typically go without or figure out how to make it work. This was a prime example of that, and I was very pleased with the result.
A quick Google search of “easy homemade pasta” led me to this recipe.
You see, I had never made homemade pasta before! I had seen it done, and I was intrigued, but I had never tried it out. Pasta is my “easy” button, and we usually have some on hand for those nights when we need something quick and easy.
I got to work! Flour and eggs I always have on hand. I ended up needing to add a bit of water. The recipe told me to put the dough in the fridge for at least 30 minutes…I decided to forgo that step and it turned out fine.
I mixed the flour and eggs in my Kitchenaid mixer. The recipe instructed to add water if the dough looks dry which I ended up doing, about ½ cup. You don't want a sticky dough, but you also don't want it to be crumbly either.
We don't have any fancy pasta makers, so I ended up rolling it with a rolling pin and cutting it by hand. This turned out decently - after cutting about 50 noodles with a knife I dug out the pizza cutter and it went much faster, so I highly recommend that!
The biggest thing was that the noodles do bulk up when you boil them, so my hand-rolled dough sheets were not nearly as thin as you could get with a roller. The texture wasn't exactly like a store-bought noodle, but it was very tasty all the same.
We still used my homegrown, homemade tomato sauce, and we heated up some green beans and broccoli from the freezer. Though this method did take a bit longer, it was pretty easy to do!
When I make homemade pasta again I plan to roll the dough even thinner, and I would use the pizza cutter from the beginning. The noodles did stick together when I piled them on one cutting board to put into the pot, but I was pleasantly surprised when they cooked and separated again.
What a fun way to begin my adventure of 52 new recipes in 2024!
Homemade Pasta
3 1/4 cups flour
4 eggs
Water, as needed
Put both the flour and eggs into a stand mixer with a dough hook. Turn the mixer on low to combine. If dough is crumbly, add water until the mixture becomes a ball (I added 1/2 cup water at this stage). Turn the mixer onto a medium speed, and mix for 3-5 minutes.
Put dough ball in plastic wrap and put in the fridge for at least 30 minutes, maximum of 12 hours. (Note from Laura: I did not do this step and the pasta came out fine.)
Roll the dough out as thin as possible with a rolling pin and cut the noodles into the desired shape.
Once noodles are cut, submerge in pot of boiling water for 3 minutes. Noodles will float to the surface when they are done. Enjoy!
