16. Make my own pasta

I know, I know, this isn't that hard. But I hadn't ever done it, and I feel like making your own pasta from scratch is like a real cook thing, rather than a home cook thing, and I wanted to do it right!

The good thing about running a marathon is that eating pasta is no big deal, because you're always needing carbs for that next big run. So after my run one week I decided that it was a good time to try making some fettucine noodles for some fettucine alfredo. After doing some research I purchased a reasonable pasta roller and bought some 00 flour (essential for pasta and pizza dough!).

I ended up using the pasta recipe in the pasta roller box, which was relatively easy!

Pasta Dough

Yield: 4 servings

2 1/2 cups (12 oz) Italian 00 flour, plus more for dusting

1 tsp. Kosher salt

4 large eggs

1 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil (optional)

Place flour and salt in a large mixing bowl and whisk to combine. Make a "well" in the center of the flour mixture and add eggs and oil.

Using your fingers, blend the eggs into the flour mixture, stirring the flour in from the sides of the well and working outwards.

When the pasta dough is thoroughly mixed, turn it out on a lightly floured work surface. Knead dough until it is smooth and flexible but not sticky, adding small amounts of flour as needed; about 5 minutes.

Shape the dough into a ball and flatten it into a disc. Cover with plastic wrap and allow it to rest for at least 20 minutes or up to an hour at room temperature.

So making the dough was the easy part. Lots of kneading and making sure all the bits of flour were incorporated. Since it was the first time I was using the machine it recommended running some waste dough through the surfaces to make sure that it was clear. This was a really good idea, because I really needed to get used to how to progressively roll the dough sheets thinner, and how sticky the dough can get. Seriously. It sticks to your hands, the machine, itself...you really need to make sure you're adding a bit of flour. So after running the waste dough through a few times and thinking I got it sorted, I tossed that and then started with the actual dough I was planning to eat.

It took several tries (including balling up the sliced noodles after I didn't add enough flour and they became a spaghetti monster ball of noodles that was useless), but I finally was able to make a serving of fettucine noodles that I was very pleased with. I popped them into the boiling water for a couple of minutes and they were perfect!

I added grilled chicken and alfredo sauce and I had a lovely dinner.