I Did It Guys!
I made homemade pasta! It was not the perfect experience that I have seen many times on the Food Network or Lidia’s Italian Kitchen, but it was edible. So, this is how it started. Months ago. I found a pasta maker at a thrift store. It was in its original sealed box, original plastic wrapping around the machine and with the instructions! The box was not pretty, but it was never used. I was so excited. I always thought these machines were massively expensive for some reason. So, I never really thought about it until I found this. I have done research since, and it turns out they are affordable. Like $30.00. So, Anybody can make their own pasta!
The Decision To Make Homemade Pasta
I decided this past Sunday was the day I was going to attempt this. I woke up early and got in the car. I very easily could have just looked something up online, but I like the actual books. I’ve got a whole collection of cookbooks. Old and new. Off to Barnes & Noble I went in search of Lidia’s cookbook, as she was my inspiration for always wanting to try to make homemade pasta in the first place.
I figured it would be the perfect place to start. Well, she has multiple cookbooks, but I didn’t see one at the store I was at, that had an actual pasta recipe. Only pasta dishes. They all looked amazing of course but not quite what I was looking for. I sat there for over an hour in search of a pasta recipe. All the ones I came across utilized eggs in the recipe.
Finding The Right Recipe
I knew when I got the pasta maker that the instruction manual had a couple recipes and there was one that came with it that did not utilize eggs in the recipe. But I figured flour and water would just be bland. I wanted authentic tasting pasta. My son has many food allergies and yes, eggs are one of them. So, I do my very best to make everything we eat something we can ALL eat. It helps him to feel included and to be honest it is way less work than having to cook two of everything. So anyway, back to the pasta. I ended up picking a book that had recipes from all around Italy. I love Italian food so, I will definitely get use out of this book.
Off To The Supermarket
I left the bookstore and came home to make a list of ingredients, not only to make the pasta itself but I wanted to make of meal of it. Off to the supermarket I went. While I was in the flour aisle I found Bob’s Red Mill No. 1 Durum Wheat Semolina Flour for Superb Pasta. As I peeked at the recipe on the back it dawned on me that I could just use my son’s Egg Replacer to make the pasta work well. So, I got this and headed back home so excited to get started!
I had to make some adjustments to the recipe on the back of the package to get the desired look, feel and consistency that I needed for pasta. Doing this all while not having any idea what I was doing was extremely fun, a bit scary, but honestly, I just wanted it to be edible. I didn’t really care how it looked the first time.
Here is the tweaked recipe/Ingredients
3 cups Semolina Pasta flour
1 tsp. Salt
6 Tbs Extra virgin olive oil
6 Tbs Water
3 Egg replacer eggs (Mixed with the water) as it says on package.
I followed the rest of the recipe exactly off the back of the package. While the pasta was rising, I made a light creamy lemon sauce with mushrooms, spinach, tomatoes, and garlic bread sticks to round out our meal.
Play Time!
When it came time to use the pasta machine this is where I made my mistake. I didn’t realize I needed to roll out the dough on the largest setting, then again on the next lowest setting, then again on the next lowest setting etc. I was going for a pappardelle pasta, so I just needed to flatten it out. I only rolled it through the machine once. Then did a hand cut with my pastry wheel. It looked about right to me, so I continued and placed it in the boiling water to cook. After 5 minutes I added it to my sauce and served.
It was Pasta! Almost like a dumpling because it was so thick but it tasted good and authentic. Next time I will do all the extra roll throughs that I wasn’t aware of this first time, and it will get tastier with practice and a bit thinner 
Thank you for coming on this adventure with me, I hope you give it a try, it was so much better than the dried stuff we get at the store.
Enjoy! We did!
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