homemade pasta

My roommate visited a friend recently who had a pasta maker and loved making pasta so much that she bought one of her own! Needless to say, I was very excited by this decision. I had never made pasta before with a proper pasta roller and as much as I love the hearty thick egg noodles I can make with just a rolling pin, they're not really appropriate for most pasta dishes.

So this is the pasta machine from Italy. It's a hand crank pasta maker, which means it's much easier for two people to make the pasta than just one. D's working on the dough here.

We don't have a drying rack for the freshly made pasta, but hangers work fine for now. D made lasagna noodles first (and made some amazing lasagna the next day).

And then we switched to fettuccine. My involvement at this point consisted of turning the crank. After just a couple pasta making sessions, D's become quite good at getting a feel for the dough in terms of moisture content and thickness. I haven't tried my hand at it yet but I plan to soon.

We let the pasta dry then packed in in ziplocs and put it in the cupboard. It'll keep for a while this way, which is great.

For dinner one night my housemate made this incredible ragout. She grilled eggplant (we had some trouble getting the charcoal hot enough) and then cubed it and added garlic, onions, mushrooms, zucchini, tomatoes and fresh herbs (I think that's everything). The eggplant had this incredible charred flavor and was really meaty without being tough or rubbery. I'm still learning to cook eggplant well and have had my share of mess ups.

Here's the fresh fettuccine in some boiling water. It took longer to cook than either of us expected, but that could have been in part the pot we were using.

We put the ragout on the pasta, added some grated parmesan, and a Bell's Oberon for an incredible summer meal!