Molto Rustico Pasta.

I named this myself.

It started with this post on a kitchen/cooking website…

A friend in town had a spare rolling pin and gave it to me.

Last night was the night.  I made my own pasta.

It’s actually very easy!  I mixed it up and kneaded it. (The “well” for the eggs spilled over, just a matter of learning how big to make it I guess… My hands were messy but I expected that, and managed to catch the egg from going too far!)

While it rested for a half hour, I chopped some red and yellow bell pepper and cooked them a bit in some olive oil, garlic, onlion, and added some balsamic.  I added this to a jar of sauce (I didn’t have the things on hand to make my own, but it was a nicer/pricier brand. It was a balsamic tomato sauce by Silver Palate.)

Then I rolled out the dough, and had great difficulty making them all the same thickness, width, and length. I think the width and length don’t really matter so much, but thickness does because it changes the cooking time. I threw them in boiling water, after 4/5 minutes, I fished out the thinner pieces, and the thicker ones had a few more minutes to cook.

Some of the pasta was perfect thickness, some were very hearty and reminded me of my grandma’s spaetzles (german noodles, very doughy and dense) or gnocchi…. But you know what? it was all GOOD!!!!!

I have leftovers for lunch today.  I am excited to make it again, and I know now how to make it a bit more even…. when I was rolling it out, it kept wanting to contract once I lifted the rolling pin.  This is where the constant repeats of “use MORE flour” comes in – the flour helps keep it stretched out thinner – my last batch (you divide the dough in quarters and roll one at a time) came out much better than the first few!

This recipe cost me $1.35 for the pasta (eggs and flour and salt).  The jar of sauce, I don’t remember, probably $4-5 as it’s a more “gourmet” type brand.  Two bell peppers.  Parmesan cheese on top, I always have fresh shredded parm cheese in the house.

The recipe made less pasta than a box would have made, but if my rolling skills didn’t have that learning curve, it would have been more pasta than you see in those “fresh” pasta packages in the store.  As it was, we stuffed ourselves last night, and I have lunch today.

I highly recommend trying this at least once! It tastes sooo much better than box pasta, it’s not THAT much work really, (if you have a pasta machine it would be really easy!) and I was waxing poetically about how I felt connected to generations of women who made all their pasta and bread by hand.  (Hey, when a recipe says have a glass of wine while the dough sits, you may get a bit silly :P)

So, because my pasta was such an unusual width/shape (I was going for egg noodle width, but it plumps a lot in cooking!) and varied in thickness, I decided it was molto rustico (very rustic) and pretended that it’s on purpose.  Shhhhh don’t tell anyone ;o)