We've been getting 4 to 5 eggs a day lately. While I'm delighted by the gifts our ladies have been producing on a daily basis, it's also been encouraging me to find ways to use up the eggs.
I've made homemade pasta in the past, but now it's even more of an economical choice. We purchase our flour at a local restaurant distributor. We are able to buy 50 lbs. of local organic flour for about 24 dollars. As we now have farm fresh eggs, pasta is an obvious choice.
Pasta is easy and simple to make, but you should be willing to devote an hour or two. Most of your time will be spent rolling the pasta yourself, or rolling it through a pasta maker.
There are many recipes for homemade pasta to be found online. It's really difficult to provide an exact recipe because the amount of water you will use is dependent on the time of year. Further, the amount of eggs you use is dependent on the size of your eggs. Since I'm using farm fresh eggs, the size is rather variable. Today, this is how my recipe worked out.
Ingredients:
- 3 1/2 cups of flour (more for "encouraging" the pasta to move through the dough roller)
- 4 farm fresh eggs
- 2 tablespoons of water
- 1/2 teaspoon of salt
The traditional way to mix the dough involves a pretty cluster of eggs within a well of flour. Although it's a traditional and classic way to produce your own pasta, I have a kitchenaid, and well, I like it. Pasta dough mixes quite easily in a mixer. Make sure to mix it for 30 seconds or so with the regular hook before your use the dough hook. Watch the dough carefully, if it seems too dry, add a tiny bit of water. If everything goes well, the pasta should work itself into a neat little ball after 2 or so minutes. Take it out of the kitchen aid, and then knead it for two more minutes.
Gradually form the dough into a nice little ball. Let the dough rest for twenty minutes. I know this step can seem silly to the new dough maker, but trust me, it's important. Then, gradually process the dough through the pasta maker or roll it out with a rolling pin. Your final pasta should be about 1/8 of an inch.
I decided to make three kinds of pasta with my dough. I actually made two batches of dough, so I was able to make bunches of linguine, ravioli and some of my own attempt at pasta shells. Basically, I just cut the dough into large squares, and squished together the ends.
The pasta shells were really yummy. They're not very pretty, and they don't curl perfectly, but they serve their purpose, they can be stuffed! I stuffed them with some homemade ricotta mixed with parmesan. Then I drizzled some roasted tomato sauce, frozen from summer, over the top, and baked them in the oven for half an hour.
I probably should have used more sauce, but the the homemade ricotta made up for it. I'll be discussing how to make ricotta tomorrow.
