20 Summer Goals | 2.) Make homemade pasta

With this post, the 20 Summer Goals series begins. I’m nervous, excited, and slightly intimidated all at once, but overall I’m ready to see what this summer has in store for me. Today I attempted to make homemade pasta, and let me tell you, it was a journey.
It began like any other cooking venture: Finding a recipe. I found the most basic one possible online, this is my very first attempt at making pasta after all, and then began the pasta making process! The recipe I used, courtesy of the always wonderful Mario Batali, called for:
3 1/2 Cups All-Purpose Unbleached Flour
4 Eggs
and a Pinch of Salt
Plain, simple, and to the point, just what I was looking for! So I gathered up the ingredients and read on through the recipe to see what was coming up next.

The next step was to take my wooden cutting board and put all the flour into a mound in the middle, make a well in the center of the flour, and pop all the eggs right in the well. Simple enough, right?

Now.. this is the point where it all went a bit, well, wrong. Very wrong. The next step in the recipe was to gently whisk the eggs together with a fork in the center of the flour mound, while slowly incorporating the flour into the eggs from the inside of the well outward. It sounds so simple that no one could possibly mess it up, but let me tell you, one wrong move of your fork and everything could go south fast. One wrong move and you’ll end up with eggs on your shoes and an eggy-flour mixture in your hair in an instant. At least, that’s what happened to me.

Note to self: When you’ve already flung flour on your hair and clothes, don’t continue to wipe your flour covered hand on your cheek as well.

But don’t give up on me just yet! I managed to regain control of the pasta making situation, added another egg into the flour to replace the one that was now all over my slippers, and continued on. Once all the flour, eggs, and salt were incorporated thoroughly, it was time to throw some extra flower on the cutting board and start kneading. After what seemed like an eternity of kneading and kneading and kneading the dough (which in reality, only amounted to 3 minutes), it was time to form the dough into a ball, cover it in plastic wrap, and let it sit for 20 minutes.

I took advantage of this break to hose down my slippers, and take a shower to get the gooey mess out of my hair, but if you managed to get through the recipe unscathed without an egg-tastrophy, then by all means, use this time to do something productive or watch some tv, the possibilities are endless for the less clumsy few of you out there. After those 20 minutes were up, it was time to roll out the dough, cut it into the desired pasta shapes and voilà! My homemade pasta was complete! I chose wide egg noodle shapes, as it seemed like the easiest and safest option for me, and I have been craving a nice pot of homemade chicken noodle soup for days now!

Now, after that messy but fun adventure, I can officially cross “make homemade pasta” off of my list of summer goals! (Insert virtual round of applause, hugs for my hardships, and just general amazement that I managed to actually do it here!) After all of that, I can assure you that I will most definitely be making homemade pasta again, only I’ll be using a mixer next time, with a nice glass of wine in my hand.

I hope you’re doing well, where ever you are in the world, and I wish you all the best.

-Lexie Xx

P.S.- If you’re interested in the recipe I used, you can find it right here: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/mario-batali/fresh-pasta-recipe.html