Lynn

I have a confession: I got a pasta machine last year and never used it. I really wanted to learn to make my own noodles, but it seemed like a lot of work and a big mess. When I finally broke down and tried, I found it really wasn’t either of those things, but it did take a bunch of time.

After digging through tons of recipes I narrowed it down to this rule for myself. Per one cup flour, add one egg, half tablespoon EVOO, and half tablespoon water.

Each one cup flour should make about 1.5 servings. This is a doubled batch.

Mix the wet ingredients well and pour into a well made in your flour. Mix until combined and forms a ball. Then knead a couple minutes. Let rest 30 minutes if you can. Then divide into a few pieces and start shoving it through the pasta machine. Start at the widest setting and start narrowing it until it’s the size you want.

If it starts getting too wide for the machine, fold it in half lengthwise and put it through at the same width before narrowing again. When you are done put it through the cutter and hang to dry. Cooked later in the day, it should only take 3 or so minutes to boil so keep an eye on it.

I’m obviously not an expert, so if you have any tips feel free to share them!

I started from scratch, milling wheat berries into fresh flour with my little hand mill. The fresh whole wheat gave my hardtack a strong whole wheat cracker taste. In fact, my made my next batch much thinner to take advantage of them as crackers too. The recipe I used was:

6 cup flour
1 cup water
1 tablespoon salt

Mix until combined and roll out to desired thickness. I had to add extra water to get it to mix. One of my batches was just under 1/2 inch thick, the second I tried 1/4 inch thick. Cut out and pierce with fork tines. Bake at 325 for 60 minutes, turning them over halfway though.

I took the classes last spring, which were really interesting. I’m now the chair for a charity garden that grows food for 2 local food banks. This year I’m also adding a less backbreaking job of working on the bloom team at the arboretum.