Passdapasta

I have been wanting a pasta maker for years. YEARS. I just never felt like spending the cashola to do it, so I figured one day, a pasta maker would drop into my lap. THAT DAY IS FINALLY HERE!

I love it. You put your request out into the universe, and VOILA, five years later, it comes TRUE! How cool is THAT? My next request is for cheese making equipment and one MEEEELION dollars!

Some lovely friends of mine cleaned out their basement and found a practically brand new machine, back from the 90's. Still in its original box! (Which, by the way, was a BITCH to put back together. It was worse than Tetris.) At least the machine itself came with detailed instructions on how to put it together. This too was tetris like.

I followed the directions in the book, using spelt flour (2 of the provided cups), 2 beaten eggs, water and EVOO until the line on the provided cup. You dump everything into the machine and turn it on.

Once it has had a chance to mix and look like play-doh, you turn the machine off, wait a beat of two, and then turn it on to EXTRUDE, which sounds horrible and actually looks quite disgusting.

Which totally reminded me of this:

Note to self: Never add beets or red dyes to homemade pastas.

Actually, it was pretty cool watching it EXTRUDE. Every once in a while I used the little white thingamabob like a guillotine to chop it off.
As I gathered it on a plate, I dusted it with a bit more spelt flour to stop it from sticking, and just sort of tossed it around to help it dry since I didn't have anything to hang it on.

Once I had enough for dinner, I got a large pot of boiling water going. It is very important to salt your water when making pasta. Also, never add oil to the water. You should add enough salt that the water tastes like the ocean. I also crank a few grinds of pepper in to remind myself that I have salted it, so I don't do it twice. If you put oil in the water, whatever sauce you pour on the pssta will slide off it instead of getting in all the nooks and crannies.

Keep a good rolling boil on when making pasta. Give it a good juj every once in a while, so it doesn't stick to the bottom of the pan.

For my first pasta making experience, I made linguini. I will not make it again. Next time, I will make fusilli or penne or rigatoni. Something big. Cleaning that little piece that makes the pasta shapes is such a pain in the ass. I had to soak it and use this little poker thing to get the bits of dough that were stuck in it about 398480398290 times. That one stupid piece took me about 30 minutes of cleaning time.

As I was so intent on making the pasta itself, I didn't really think about the pasta sauce until I was just about to throw the pasta in the pot. And just a note, homemade pasta cooks in about 3 minutes. So I decided to go really easy. I had half a jar of tomato sauce in the fridge and I pulled out some frozen pesto from a previous blog. I added a good wodge of the pesto (about half of the baggie) to the jar of tomato sauce, covered it and heated it while I cooked the pasta.

Overall, I think my first pasta experiment was a success. Now we just have to work on table manners.

Thank you again to the Gartner Family for this fabulous loan. Once I have worked on my pasta making skills a bit more, you can expect some noodles in your mailbox.

Any chance of some cheesemaking equipment in your basement too?