There is nothing like fresh pasta to make a weeknight meal feel special. Best of all, you can have dinner ready in less than an hour, depending on what you plan to pair with the pasta.
Serves 3-4 as an entree just with sauce, or 5-6 if served with other things.
Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose Flour
2 Eggs
4-8 tablespoons Water
Salt for the boiling water
Method:
Combine all the ingredients in a food processor.
Process until a dough is formed. Take out and knead for about 1 minute until smooth.
Let it rest for about 5 minutes, but you can let it rest longer. I've made this up to 24 hours in advance.
While resting, bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add salt to the water.
Roll out pasta dough until fairly thin using a rolling pin. Use additional flour to keep the dough from sticking.
Cut strips of pasta with a knife or other cutter. Keep strips or shapes separate by dusting them with flour (don’t pile them up or they might stick together)
Cook for about 5 minutes. The pasta will float when it is done.
Serve with your favorite sauce or even with butter and Parmesan cheese.
Notes:
When rolling out the pasta, keep your strands relatively thin or your shapes small because they will swell in the water.
Finally, if you don't feel like rolling out the pasta, here is a quick hack. Pinch off small pieces of the dough right into the boiling water. They become like little dumplings and are just as delicious. These are delicious with sauce but can also be used in soup and hold up to freezing without getting too mushy.
Variations:
Spinach Pasta - substitute 10 oz. of frozen, thawed chopped spinach for the water. Make sure to squeeze as much water out of the spinach as possible.
Tomato/Rosy Pasta - add 2 tablespoons of tomato paste to the mixture. You may need to adjust the amount of water you use depending on how dry your flour is.
Semolina Pasta - substitute all of the flour for semolina flour for a very firm pasta (perfect for soups, stews, or long cooking dishes), or use 1 cup of all-purpose flour and 1 cup of semolina flour.
Whole Wheat Pasta - similar to semolina pasta, you can substitute all or a portion of the flour for whole wheat flour, but remember this will make very heavy and dense pasta. Also, when rolling out your pasta, use regular flour, not whole wheat, because it is finer and will provide a smoother outer texture.
Gluten-Free Pasta - use 2 cups 1:1 Gluten Free Flour with 3 eggs and 1/2 teaspoon salt (added only if you are using the entire dough at once. If you are going to freeze some dough, add it when you use it)
