Bolling, Kneading, and Boiling my way to fresh pasta

A few years ago I asked for all sorts of pasta making equipment for Christmas.  I was planning to make pasta!  Did I? Nope... Andy did it once and it seemed to work well... But I did not.  I see it down in the storage room and think - Oh that's fun - BUT... always a but.  This past weekend I decided that the buts were done.  Time to make pasta.  It was honestly ridiculously easy.  Like - SO easy.  My mixer did the kneading and the mixing, the pasta maker rolled it out, the boiling water for 2 minutes and out came the fluffiest pasta ever.  And really?  It was so good.  I also made my own sauce - so somehow I traded the easiest meal we made into one of the more complicated ones that needs LOTS of kitchen equipment - but you know what?  It was fun to do - good to eat - and worth doing again - without a doubt.
Now I'm looking for other pasta shapes to make - how can I make rotini, or ziti... more things to add to my Christmas list.  But this time I won't take that long to play with it.

Homemade Pasta

2 cups of all purpose flour (or your flour of choice)

3 large eggs

1/2 tsp salt (optional)

2 Tbsp water

5 sprays, olive oil cooking spray

additional water for mixing, as needed, 1 tsp at a time 

** additional 1-1/2 tsp fl.our, plus cooking spray for dusting

In a large mixing bowl or stand mixer, combine the flour, eggs, salt, olive oil cooking spray and 2 Tbsp of water to form a dough ball. The mixture will be dry, so add water as needed to help the dough come together. 

Remove dough to a cutting board, and cut into 2 equal sized 1 cup dough balls. 

Take 1 of your 1 cup pasta dough balls, and cut it into (4) 1/4 cup portions, just like when you section 2 ingredient dough. Next, roll each one of the 1/4 cup sections into 4 small dough balls.

Use your hand and a rolling pin to flatten one of the 1/4 cup pasta balls into a roughly rectangular flat shape.

You are trying to shape your flattened dough balls to fit length-wise across most of the pasta makers guide-track. 

With the pasta-width adjustment at its widest setting, run the pasta through the sheet rollers 3-4 times, then adjust the knob on the machine to make the rollers 1 step closer together.

After every 3-4 passes through the rollers, continue to make the pasta sheet thinner and thinner, stopping after the 2nd from the thinnest setting.

Use a knife to cut your pasta sheet in half, then use a few taps of the remaining flour in your wire strainer, to lightly dust the pasta sheet on both sides. Move hand crank to the hole for the linguini cutter. Hold one of the pasta sheet halves over the unit, positioning the bottom of the sheet against the cutting blades. Turn the hand crank, while lowering the pasta sheet into the blades. As soon as the noodles are cut, drop them into a pot of boiling water. Use a utensil to stir and separate them. Boil for 2 minutes then remove from water and strain. Repeat until all of the pasta is rolled out, cut into noodles and boiled. Use immediately by stirring them into a sauce. If you need to save them for later, rinse the noodles off with cool water and store in a ziplock bag in the fridge. Reheat by putting them back into boiling water for a few seconds.