How to make homemade pasta

Step 1:  Inherit the Pasta Queen noodle-making machine from your grandma.  If you haven't yet received the hand-me-down pasta maker, game over.  
Step 2:  Get nostalgic and remember your childhood days when you would help grandma make noodles, then watch in awe as she transformed them into comforting chicken and noodle soup like only your grandma can do.  


Step 3: After you've wiped away the happy tears, get your ingredients out.  Let's see here,  you need flour, salt, eggs, and that's it.  Maybe have some water on hand too just in case.  


Step 4:  Take your flour and make a little nest with it.  Then you add the eggs into your flour nest because that's where eggs belong.  
Step 5:  Now here's the hard/fun part.  While trying to keep the eggs in the nest, you want to incorporate the flour into the eggs.  It's hard because you want to keep the eggs from escaping the flour and running all over the counter.  It's fun because you get your hands nice and dirty with eggs and flour.  


Step 6:  Keep mixing and mixing and mixing until you form a nice dough ball.  You might want to add a couple of tablespoons of water if your dough is not coming together.  
Step 7:  If When your arms get tired before the dough ball has been formed, have your dad step in and finish it up.  Because that's what your dads is for.  When things get tough, he's there to help you out.   
Step 8:  When your dough ball is formed, knead it have your dad knead it for 3-4 more minutes.  


Step 9:  Now, let your dough rest.  You're tired.  Dad is tired.  The dough is tired.  Everyone could use a little nap.  


Step 10:  After 15 minutes, it's time to start making this pasta!  Get out your Pasta Queen and attach it to the counter, just like grandma used to do.  


Step 11:  Cut your dough into about 5-6 strips from the ball.  Take your first strip and run it through the pasta maker at the thickest setting.  Fold it in half and run it through again.  Lightly flour your strip and then run it through the second thickest setting twice (you don't have to keep folding it in half though).  
Step 12:  Once your pasta strip is nice and long and to your preferred thickness, it's time to cut it into pasta.  My pasta maker makes thick or thin noodles.  We chose thick fettucini for the first batch and thin spaghetti for the second.  You pick whatever you like best.
Step 13:  Pat yourself on the back and pat your dad on the back on the back because you just made pasta!  
 Step 14:  After all the pasta has been made, you want to dry it out for a couple of hours.  If you don't have a drying rack, use a couple of wooden spoons to drape the pasta over and balance each end on a couple of equal height cereal boxes.  


Step 15:  Cook the pasta and eat your hard work!  You probably burned a few hundred calories from all of that kneading so go ahead and indulge.  Pasta carbonara, here you come!


Homemade Pasta


3 cups flour*
1/4 tsp salt
4 eggs
water if needed


*I used white whole wheat flour for one batch and all-purpose for the other.  The texture of the two were very different, so if you want to use white-whole wheat, you will end up with a very stiff and dense dough ball, while if you use all-purpose, it will be springy and stickier.  


Directions:  


Make nest with flour and salt, and carefully add the eggs in the middle.  You can do this in a bowl or on the counter.  Carefully mix the flour into the eggs.  Keep working the dough to form a nice round dough ball.  Knead dough ball for 3-4 minutes.  


Let dough rest for 15 minutes.  Cut dough ball into 5-6 strips.  One strip at a time, flatten at the thickest setting on your pasta maker, fold in half, then run it through again.  Lightly dust it with flour, then run it through each setting twice, getting thinner and thinner, until it is at your desired thickness.  I stopped after level 4. Once you reach your desired thickness, run it through the pasta noodle shaping side.  


Let noodles dry on drying rack for 3 hours.  Use right away or keep in airtight container in refrigerator for up to one week or in freezer.