This past week I decided it was time to learn how to make fresh pasta. For some reason I have always been intimidated by making fresh pasta and never thought it would be truly worth all the trouble. After all pasta out of a box is great. I followed this recipe by Giada De Laurentiis, it was super easy and I love anything that can be made in a food processor.  The only hard part was kneading the pasta dough for the 5-8 minutes; it’s a definite workout for the arms.  After I let the dough rest I went to work cranking out super thin sheets of pasta with my little pasta machine.  I turned the thin sheets in to a delicious Lasagna “Mel’s Mean Green Chicken Florentine Lasagna”. Today I made pasta again and turned it in to fresh ravioli that I then froze so I have it when I need it, and tomorrow I’m thinking fresh fettuccine with grilled spicy shrimp will be on the menu….

 Fresh Pasta

 Recipe courtesy Giada De Laurentiis

SHOW: Giada at Home

EPISODE: Pasta From Scratch

 Ingredients:

 2 cups cake flour

1 cup all-purpose flour, plus extra for dusting

4 large egg yolks, at room temperature

1/8 teaspoon kosher salt

1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

Directions:

Place the cake flour, all-purpose flour, egg yolks and salt in a food processor. Pulse to combine. With the machine running, gradually add the oil then 1/3 to 1/2 cup water until the mixture forms a dough (the dough should stick together if pinched between your fingers). If necessary, add additional water, 1 teaspoon at a time if the dough is too dry.

Place the dough on a lightly floured surface. Gather the dough into a ball and knead until the dough is smooth, 5 to 8 minutes. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Cut the dough into quarters and press flat. Run each piece of pasta dough several times through a pasta-rolling machine, adjusting the setting each time, until the pasta is about 1/8 to 1/16-inch thick. Cut the pasta into the desired shape and use as needed.