Pasta from Scratch

I have ALWAYS wanted to make pasta by hand but have been too intimidated to try. Last night I had nothing to do and mustered up the courage to try it out. I looked for the easiest recipe possible that didn't involve a pasta machine and landed on this one from The Pioneer Woman.

First step was measuring the flour, creating a little "well", and then adding the eggs. I used 1 cup of flour and 2 eggs for technically two servings of pasta.

I very slowly combined the egg and flour with my hands. It was SO sticky. I wonder if I should have put some flour on my hands before I started? Once it was combined I transferred it to a floured cutting board and started the kneading! This is the part that's always worried me. How do you know when it's done? Well I wasn't really sure, but about 20 minutes later I thought the dough looked smooth enough. I then let it sit on the counter for another 20 minutes.

The next step was rolling it out! The Pioneer Woman said the pasta would plump up in the water, so I tried to roll it as thin as absolutely possible.

Then I used a pizza cutter to cut the dough into thin strips. This was really as thin as I could possibly do...it was tough to keep the roller straight!

Finally I added the pasta to boiling salted water. It only took about 2 minutes for the pasta to rise to the top, letting me know it was done. I hadn't thought ahead and didn't have any tomatoes or pasta sauce on hand, so i simply mixed it up with some garlic flavored olive oil, Italian seasoning, salt, and parmesan cheese. The pasta was amazing!! I love the texture -- it was definitely more chewy than dry pasta. Next time I will focus on cutting it a bit thinner.

Delizioso!