Would you like to know how I made this...
... Look like this?
For the longest time I've wanted to make my own pasta and if I would have known it was going to be this easy I would have started doing it a LONG time ago!! Recently my mom and I discovered a pasta maker/roller on sale at one of our favorite stores for an incredible price! It was the only one left and we decided to snag it...
Most of the instructions inside were in Italian so I did a lot of my research online... I came across several different recipes for pasta dough and decided to pick and choose from each recipe and make a dough recipe of my own and I'm happy to say it'll do JUST fine! After preparing the dough I was ready to get started... first I needed to put my pasta roller together...
Well now that was easy... everything literally just slid into place! And just like that I was ready to begin! The first step is to make pasta sheets that will then be cut into whatever shape of pasta you desire... this Imperia only came with one attachment so with that I can do fettucini and spaghetti. These next steps were a BREEZE!!! The only difficult thing was when the pasta sheet got too long it was a bit difficult to handle... but all I did was cut the sheet in half and problem solved! I also started off by cutting the dough ball that you see above in half and the sheet you see below is sending half of that dough ball through the first setting about four times.
Speaking of the "settings"... see that little knob to the left of the pasta sheet above? That is what you turn to bring the rollers closer together or further apart. When you start out you want it on your largest setting and you need to roll the dough through each setting about five to six times before going to the next thinner setting and you do this until you have your desired thickness. Down below is a picture of when I had to cut the sheet in half because it was getting too long and difficult to handle all by myself and I had actually already rolled them through a few times...
Now came the cutting! Here's a tip for this part... let your dough sheets (above) sit or hang from a drying rack for a little bit before sending it through the cutter. If your dough is too soft it might stick as your rolling it through and then it is a PAIN to get the dough out of the roller and you can't continue making pasta if dough is stuck in the roller... trust me... it doesn't work ;) the above pictures show my SECOND round of pasta... not my first LOL. It was a bit too difficult to take pictures as I was cutting the pasta and having to catch it as it came out so here's a picture of the pasta in my hand right as I had rolled it through...
And voila! You have pAsta! It was incredibly fun and so rewarding! My son, who isn't eating ANYTHING right now, watched me do this and then proceeded to gobble it up with just a little bit of olive oil and some parmesan cheese. Yes it's THAT'S good you don't even need sauce!!! So alas... here is yet another item we are adding to our list of things we no longer have to buy. It'll be homemade pasta for this little family from here on out! Oh and by the way... that TINY little dough ball that you see in the first picture above... produced all this!
Here's some fettucini from my first batch... yes even after messing it up it STILL turned out delicious!
Our very own homemade pasta that is quick, easy and delicious... What could BE more magickal?!
