Hey again! I hope you're having a great day. When I started this blog, my intention was to share all of my dreams, passions, ideas, and life in a casual yet personal way. After all, that is normally what a blog entails ;). But, as I was viewing my own site yesterday, I realized that I wanted to write more casual and personal posts that reflect my day-to-day life.
I was watching some YouTube videos the other week and stumbled upon a 2-ingredient homemade pasta recipe from Bigger Bolder Baking. Have any of you seen/tried Gemma Stafford's recipes as well? I've been cooking and baking some new recipes as of late (most haven't turned out well lol), so I was a little apprehensive about trying to make pasta at home. But this no-machine recipe looked pretty straightforward, and my mom's birthday is coming up, so I figured I would give it a shot!
Like I said earlier, this blog was missing those casual and personal life documentations. So, I thought I would share my experience of making homemade pasta without a machine! This post is in no way an exciting life update, but I did want to share my experience. If you're discouraged to try a new recipe, I hope this inspires you to dig out some ingredients and start cooking!
* Also, this isn't a recipe post — I'm just recreating the Bigger Bolder Baking 2-ingredient pasta recipe, and want to give Gemma Stafford full credit for that! *
As its name describes, this recipe only requires two ingredients: eggs and flour! The Bigger Bolder Baking website also has a gluten free, vegan, and whole wheat recipe if you're interested.
Now onto the making of the pasta....
I wish I had taken pictures of this step!! Anyway, I really struggled with the beginning stage of the pasta making. I couldn't keep all four eggs contained in my flour well and the egg whites just started spilling out. Once I started incorporating the two ingredients together, things seemed to be going smoothly. I kept looking at Gemma's video and pictures to see if my dough was looking right. My dough looked way too dry, hard, and crumbly so after a few "water splashing" attempts, I decided to add about half an egg. This did help my dough bind together better, but it still didn't look like Gemma's. I ended up just popping it in the fridge, as directed, hoping for the best.
I'm literally sitting here typing this post out as I wait for my dough to rest lol. It's been about an hour, so let's see how the dough is looking! Fingers crossed it turns out alright...
My dough is out of the refrigerator and it looks a bit more dry than the original recipe's pictures, which I suspected would be the case. But, I figure if I'm able to roll out the dough, it should be okay.
Before making the pasta, I knew it would be labor intensive - or shall I say a labor of love - but I didn't anticipate the arm strength it would take! Gemma's recipe definitely mentions the elbow grease that goes into the pasta making, but whew, I was sweating and aching by the end of it. I sound really dramatic, but the fact that my dough was more dry/on the tougher side did not help when rolling it out.
It took me awhile to roll the pasta into a paper-thin sheet. My favorite part of this whole process was cutting the pasta and unraveling the little "bundles" to reveal the noodles! I cut my pasta a bit wider than the original recipe so I could make pappardelle. After cutting the pasta I realized it still wasn't thin enough so I re-rolled each noodle. That was definitely time-consuming, but well worth it. Also, I gave in and enlisted my dad for help haha. I think this is the first blog post I've written in real-time (not my usual recaps). So, it's still Saturday and I haven't actually tasted the pasta yet! I'll work on this post again tomorrow to share the sauce I make, and how the pasta tastes. I'm really excited!
Today is officially Sunday, which means I'll be making my pasta for dinner tonight! I'll also be making a semi-homemade meat sauce for the pasta. I'm more of an alfredo/anything with cheese kind of person when it comes to pasta sauce lol. But, my mom is lactose intolerant, and my sister and I are cutting out dairy + sugar in an attempt to naturally heal our skin (Would you want to see a blog post on that? Let me know). I just got back from walking around at the park, and have been prepping my ingredients so that I could write this post before dinner.
I just finished cutting my onions and carrots and felt like it would be a good idea to cook a noodle just to make sure the consistency was okay. Initially, I cooked it in boiling water for about 3 minutes (as directed), but it didn't taste ready yet. So I ended up putting the noodle back in the pot and trying it every few minutes just to see which consistency I liked best. After tasting little nibbles every couple of minutes, I think I'll cook my pasta for about 8-10 minutes. This is much longer than the original recipe's directions, but like I said yesterday, my dough is more tough.
It's 3:20 p.m., so when 5:30/6 rolls around, I will probably get cooking!
I didn't get to sit down and write about cooking the pasta in real-time, because I was too busy cooking our dinner lol. So, it's now 1 a.m. and I should sleep but I really want to finish relaying my pasta making experience. If you've cooked/baked anything that took a crazy amount of time recently, share your experience in the comments below! Honestly, it doesn't even need to be a food item..just anything you spent a hell of a lot of time on and want to share with others! There's something about laboring over a dish, craft, work of art, etc. that lights something up inside you and makes you want to tell the world! Even if you're just recreating someone else's work, like I did with my pasta ;). Anyway, I don't want to ramble too much longer. Time to revisit what I was up to in the kitchen earlier today...
I started with the pasta sauce which is semi-homemade. I used Trader Joes' rustico pomodoro pasta sauce, and cooked my own ground pork. I seasoned my meat with oregano, fennel seeds, garlic powder, basil, parsley, salt, and pepper, and sautéed with onions, carrots, and garlic. I know most red sauce pastas would be accompanied by beef, but I only had ground pork. It still tasted good, though. I started the sauce long before cooking the vegetables and pasta so that I could leave the sauce simmering on low. That way, the sauce will be more flavorful!
Once I finished making the sauce, I steamed some broccoli and then started to cook the pasta. At this point, the rest of my family was getting super hungry haha. Like I said earlier, I ended up having to cook my pasta for about ten minutes. So, that was another factor in making this process take awhile. I also cooked the pasta in two separate batches because I didn't want to overcrowd the pot.
Once I served up the broccoli, I mixed the meat sauce and pasta together and dinner was finally ready!
As for the taste, my family and I really enjoyed this pasta! It was quite a labor of love but the bouncy, chewiness was almost worth it. There's just something about handmade pasta...
I also want to mention that since I made the noodles wider like pappardelle, a nice thick sauce - like this meat sauce - was perfect. Plus, my dough couldn't be rolled out into dainty little noodles, as thin as it already is.
The bottom line is that this pasta was delicious, but after hours on end of rolling out the dough, I'm not sure I'll be making this recipe again anytime soon. Still, it was a fun experience and I hope you enjoyed reading this little post. I hope this inspires you to try something new and not let the directions intimidate you!
