Homemade Pasta

One of the gifts I got for Christmas this year was a pasta extruder. I had always seen pasta makers more like this one and did not even realize the extruders existed, so this was a fun little surprise!



The extruder comes with 5 dies to make different shapes. This time I opted for the largest one, the rigatoni (top right in the pic).



I believe I followed this recipe for the dough, but it may have been this one. I do know that I added in a little olive oil and some herbs for some nice coloring. The mixer did not handle the dough too well and so I had to finish it off by hand and then started extruding!



Next time I will do this as two man job, but Justin was busy with the baby. It would have been nice to have one person cranking and one person cutting, and then switch jobs after a while. By myself it was slow going, but soon I had a pile of pasta!



And here it is, all buried in a pile of broccoli, mushrooms, onions, and Alfredo sauce ~



A very tasty meal indeed! The pasta turned out very dense, unlike any pasta I've had before. I'm not sure if that is just the texture of homemade (which I've heard is very different), or if I was way off base with my first attempt. I've got a few other recipes I'd like to try and I'm sure there is always room for improvement. But not bad for my first try.