A bit of change for today … we’re gonna give you TWO recipes instead of just ONE! Get excited …

 

Homemade Pasta

Pasta dough is just a few simple ingredients, a little bit of time and, for me, usually some frustration.

What you’ll need:

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 large eggs
• 1 tsp olive oil

That’s it for the ingredients. There is one other thing you’ll need …

A PASTA ROLLER!

This is a fancy one that attaches to our Kitchen Aid stand mixer. You can get much cheaper, manual ones at most kitchen stores. (There is also a way to make it WITHOUT a pasta roller, just takes must more work … use a rolling pin!)

Place your flour on a mixing surface in a mound.

Create a well at the top for your eggs to go in.

Make sure the well is large enough to hold the eggs! (Yea, this is where I made a goof … you don’t want the eggs flowing over the sides, trust me!)

Crack your eggs into the well in the middle. You may want to beat the eggs first, but it’s not mandatory.

Add the olive oil to the well.

Start to fold in the flour from the edges, mixing with the egg.

You can see in this photo my egg run off from the well being too small. This did become a problem later, as any run off, if not incorporated into the flour, will cause the dough to be too dry. I fixed this by adding just a teaspoon of water.

Lesson is, if  you screw up, it can still be saved!

Now that it’s mixed, time for kneading.

You’ll want to knead the dough for at least 6 minutes, I’ve found

You’ll know it’s ready when it looks like this. It will be very stiff and a bit dry, don’t worry, it’s supposed to be like that!

Wrap it up in plastic (you don’t want it to dry out) and let it sit for about half an hour

Now for these next steps, if you don’t have a pasta roller, use a rolling pin and make the sheets as thin as possible … it’s the same process as the machine

Grab a small amount of the dough (about 1/3rd of the ball), flatten it a bit and feed it into the pasta roller.

The first pass will be the slowest!

Fold the pasta that comes out and feed it through again.

Repeat this process 4-5 times. This is lining up the gluten in the dough … making it pasta instead of just plain old dough.

Once it’s been through a few times, you’ll want to turn the dial to make the pasta thinner, then repeat the process of folding …

and rolling!

After 3-4 passes, you’ll again turn the dial to make the pasta thinner and repeat this process. Keep going until you’ve turned that dial maybe 4 times …

Once you have sheets that are as thin as you want, you’re done. These sheets can be used to make lasagna or ravioli!

But, if you happen to have a pasta cutter …

Let’s make spaghetti!

Feed the sheet through the cutter

Spaghetti!

It can be used right away, stored for a few days the fridge or even frozen for later!

(If you don’t have a pasta cutter, you can cut thin strips with a sharp knife! Makin’ it old school!)

Kale & Pumpkin Seed Pesto

Pesto is a nice, fresh addition to any pasta!

Here’s what you’ll need:

• one bunch of kale
• 1/2 cup of pumpkin seeds (shelled)
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1/2 cup of olive oil
• pinch of salt
• 1 tsp of lemon juice

Now, this one is easy … if you have a food processor

Like the pasta above, it require a specific appliance.

Add the kale, pumpkin seeds, garlic and olive oil to the food processor and blend.

Once blended, add the salt and lemon juice.

Blend until you have a nice, creamy texture.

There you have it, a few fun ideas that you can use together or separately.

Experiment with the ingredients! Flavour your pasta, use sunflower seeds in the pesto … just have fun with it!

Bon Apetit!