Homemade Pasta {A Birthday Gift Review}

Tuesday was my big birthday:  I've reached my 30's!  It's really not that bad.  I guess for some reason I thought I'd be mildly depressed about hitting this new decade, but it's no big deal after all.  I'm thankful for the life I've been given.

For the past few years I've been wanting to know how to make homemade pasta.  Sure, dried pasta is fairly inexpensive, but there has been something appealing to me about making my own.  So, this year for my birthday I requested a pasta maker.  I did some research and most reviews I read recommended a manual pasta maker rather than an electric one.  This is the one that was given to me:

via

When I first looked at it, I thought that for sure I would end up in tears while making my first batch.  Oh, no!  This machine is SO easy to use and I LOVE it!!  Making pasta from scratch does take time, but once I got the hang of rolling it out, it went pretty quickly.  Fresh pasta only takes about 5 minutes to cook, so you do save some time on that end {at least 5 minutes--ha!}.  

How does one make pasta, you ask?  It couldn't be any easier, really.  Mix together some flour, eggs, and water when needed, and you have a basic pasta dough.  I'm looking forward to trying some variations of this, like spinach pasta, black pepper pasta, tomato pasta, etc.  Plus, it will be really fun to make homemade ravioli, tortellini, and other stuffed pastas.

What recipe did I attempt first, you ask?  None other than a classic Fettuccine Alfredo.  It was delicious.

This is what it looks like after going through the pasta maker, pre-cooked.

 

I think she had me take 15 pictures of her eating pasta.

Sorry for the blurry one, but Isabella wanted to show off her long noodles.