Make your own pasta for a weeknight supper

A lot of people are intimidated by homemade pasta. They imagine it as needing a lot of specialized equipment and a high level of skill. While it's true that to become masterful at homemade pasta does take a fair amount of practice, you can make a really great homemade pasts the first time you try, and with only about 30 minutes of effort.

Just stay relaxed about the whole process. If your noodles don't look perfect and you can't get it all uniformly thin, don't worry about it, it will still taste great; and pasta isn't really supposed to be fancy anyway. Pasta, at its best, is honest rustic food that highlights both the taste of the noodle, and a few simple ingredients that form the sauce.

You will love the taste of your own homemade pasta!

Homemade pasta (enough for about four people)

3 cups all purpose or bread flour

5 eggs

1/2 tsp salt

That's it; doesn't exactly require a lengthy trip to the supermarket does it?

Usually recipes will have you make a well in a mound of flour on the counter and beat the eggs in this well, and then mix in progressively more flour by the spoon full. This is the traditional method, and will work great, but I usually just beat the eggs in a separate bowl and add them to my mixing bowl with the flour and salt.

Once everything is the bowl, get your hands in there and mix and squish it all up. When the flour has all been incorporated into dough; take a look at the texture. You want it to feel like pretty stiff bread dough. If it looks too firm, or you can't seem to get all the four into the dough, you can add either another egg, or a bit of water. If it seems too sticky, and is clinging to the sides of the bowl, add a bit more flour until it isn't.

OK, now plop your dough onto the counter and get ready to knead it. It's helpful to have a little four at the ready for sprinkling on the counter if the pasta dough gets too sticky.

Knead as you would for bread for about 10 minutes (if you get tired after 5 or 6, don't worry about it too much!). You want the dough to look uniform and silky.

Now ideally you let the dough rest for about 20 minutes. This gives the glutens a chance to relax and will make it easier to roll, but if you're in a hurry, just skip this step and move on.

Get a big pot of water on the stove as you're almost done!

Grab a hunk the dough. You want bigger than a golf ball but smaller than a baseball. Squish it into a kind of sausage shape. Sprinkle a little flour on the counter, grab your rolling pin or rolling pin facsimile, and start to roll out the dough. As it gets thinner and longer, keep lifting it up and turning it over. If it's getting stuck to the counter just sprinkle a little more flour around. Use as little flour as you can, but as much as you need!

Now don't worry too much about the shape you're getting here, you just want to try and get the pasta sheet as thin as possible. It's done when you lift it up, and you can see your hand through the other side of it. (If I'm in a hurry a sometimes leave it a little thicker than this and it still tastes great, so don't get stressed if your sheet isn't as this as this).

Once all the pasta has been rolled out into sheets, just grab a knife and cut it into the shapes you want. There is a pasta that's called little rags, that describes nonuniform squares of fresh pastas, so whatever your pasta looks like, it will still be authentic!

Fettuccini style noodle are pretty easy, and you just cut your dough into long ¼ inch strips.

And now you are done!

This will only take between 1-3 minutes to cook, so make sure that your sauce is ready before plopping your fresh pasta into the boiling salted (it should taste like the sea) water.

You will have to keep tasting it, as it really depends on how thin it is as to the time needed for cooking. After a minute or so, fish one of the noodles out (if you're like me you'll do a little hot potato style dance as you try to hold the burning noodle)and taste it, if it's too chewy give it another minute and try again.

That's all there is too it. It may require a little more effort than dried pasta, but it is really worth it. You can have your sauce simmering away as you make the pasta, and the whole meal preparation won't take more than an hour.

Just remember to stay relaxed and have fun. It will taste great no matter what it looks like!