Making Homemade Pasta with my Mommy

I had such a great time visiting with my Mom these past two weeks.  Of course while she was here I had to get her to help me make homemade pasta. I've tried it before but it just didn't seem to come out the way I wanted to... it needed the Italian Mom's touch. Making this was really fun and of course we had to take it all over to my sister's house so everyone can enjoy the hours of labor that went into this pasta extravaganza! (granted many of those hours were spent just visiting but still hours nonetheless)
Making your own pasta is something I would recommend doing, its really fun and even if you don't have a pasta machine you can just use a rolling pin to roll it out thin. Cut into squares or circles to make ravioli and go to town on experimenting with fillings!

Making the Pasta Dough

Ingredients:

• 3 eggs
• 2 - 2 1/2 cups flour
• a little bit of water

1. Pour flour in a large bowl and make a well in the center. Break the eggs into the well. Using a fork slowly start to whisk the eggs, gradually incorporating the flour into the mix. 

2. When it starts to form a ball place on a lightly floured surface and knead with your hands.  If it seems to be too dry add a Tbsp of water and mix, repeating if necessary till smooth (not too dry not too sticky). Don't fret if it feels like its taking forever for it to get kneaded together, just keep plugging away!

3. Wrap dough in some saran wrap and place in the fridge to rest for at least 20 minutes.

Now for the fun part ...the pasta machine! 

1. Using a knife cut off a small piece of the dough, making sure to wrap the rest back in the saran wrap so it won't dry out. Flatten the dough with your hand so you can feed it through the thickest setting on the machine (for mine it was setting 7). I learned that you really have to keep dusting the strips with flour so that it won't stick to the rolls in the machine. Be prepared to cover your kitchen, and yourself, with flour!

2. Feed the dough through each setting about 2 times, dusting occasionally as needed with flour to keep from sticking. Gradually keep adjusting the setting lower to desired thickness. You may need to cut the dough to keep it from growing too long (**ahem**).

3.  Be sure to not let the dough dry out before finishing, have your filling ready if you are making ravioli. If you are making linguine lay out on a floured surface or a cookie rack after you cut until you are ready to cook.

For the Linguine I stopped on the #2 setting, for the ravioli I stopped on the #1, the thinnest, setting.

Can you guess which person will make the longest linguine ever?

I just hated having to cut my dough to a more manageable size, it was just too fun seeing how long it would get.

Speaking of Linguine it was a life saver because each ravioli was made with such love and care (i.e. very slooowly) and I wanted to make sure there was enough food to feed seven people. Plus how can you not resist cranking out linguine like playdough!

now while those linguine get a bit of a rest we can start on the...

Ravioli Filling(s)!

We went with two different kinds of ravioli fillings just to make things more fun. Believe it or not the one that got devoured the fastest was the feta cheese and walnut one, even my little nephew couldn't get enough of it!

Feta, Walnut, & Spinach Filling

Ingredients:

• Feta cheese (one regular container)
• 1/4 cup chopped walnuts
• Large handful of fresh spinach

1. Place spinach in a bowl with 1/4 cup of water, microwave on high for 2-3 minutes till wilted. Place in a colander to drain, squishing with the back of a spoon to get more water out.

2. Place all ingredients into a food processor and pulse till well blended and chopped.

The second filling was still really good

Chicken and Spinach Filling

Ingredients:

• 2 Cooked Chicken Breasts, cut into chunks
• 1 cup Shredded Parmesan Cheese
• Large handful of fresh spinach
• 1 tsp basil
• ground pepper to taste

1. Place spinach in a bowl with 1/4 cup of water, microwave on high for 2-3 minutes till wilted. Place in a colander to drain, squishing with the back of a spoon to get more water out.

2. Place all ingredients into a food processor and pulse till well blended and chopped.

And finally... Stuffing those Ravioli 
(thought I'd never get to this part ;)

We tried several methods to making the ravioli.
First method we laid out the strips and placed the filling in little piles.
Then, after brushing some water around the filling, we laid another strip on top, making sure to press firmly around the filling to seal it in.
Using a knife we cut it into individual squares.




Another Method (and my favorite) was the "making little sombreros" as my mom put it.
Since apparently I will NEVER remember to buy myself cookie cutters we used a wine glass to cut out the shapes, sadly not the first time this glass has been used for this.
We found it easy to just cut out all the circles first then place the filling inside. To keep the work surface from getting wet we brushed water on the top piece and then pressed it down on the bottom to seal.

Aren't they just so cute!

And Tada! A Homemade Pasta meal!  I whipped up a Marinara sauce for the ravioli and an Alfredo sauce for the linguine, which I learned that if you make it too long it gets tangled up while cooking and some people will be served more of a "bird's nest" pile of linguine...chirp chirp!