Fresh Pasta in a Pinch

This recipe and photos were provided by Sally Roeckell of Table and Dish and were originally published at 365Barrington.com as a part of the Heinen’s 4 P.M. Panic Series. 

The reality is that, sometimes, when 4 PM rolls around and I’ve been consumed by my day, I find myself with no plans or time for dinner and boiling water is the best I can do. Today, I’m showing you how to step that game up. I always thought fresh-made pasta was a process and a mess that required far too much effort. Not at all! It could not be easier. Three ingredients are all it takes and you don’t even need to dirty a mixing bowl. Once you taste the difference between homemade pasta and boxed pasta, you may have a hard time doing it any other way.

The recipe is simple…

• 1 and 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 and 1/2 cup semolina flour.
• 4 room temperature eggs

That’s it!

The semolina gives it a beautiful creamy color and you can actually taste the eggs!

Get dirty! Yes, you can put it in a stand mixer with a dough hook but it’s fun to make a mess once in a while. Make a mound of flour with a divot in the center. Add your eggs. Start from the center mixing until you are able to form a ball of dough. Keep kneading until smooth.

I use an attachment for my stand mixer but any pasta maker will do. If you don’t have a pasta roller you can roll it out with a rolling pin but that will be a bit more work and a good arm workout! Maybe I should give it a try next time.

Cut your ball of dough into 6 pieces. One piece at a time feed it into the pasta maker on the 1st setting (the widest) do this three or four times folding the dough in half or thirds before putting it back into the rollers. Then send it through a couple of times on 2 then again on three. We stopped there because we wanted relatively thick pasta but you can keep going. With each setting change, the rollers make the sheet of pasta thinner.

Lay your piece of pasta on your lightly floured work surface then sprinkle with a bit of the combined flours. Then roll the dough into a loose log. Cut the log into pieces with your desired pasta size. unravel the rolls and there you have fresh pasta ready to cook.

Add your fresh pasta to a pot of salted boiling water. It’s tricky to say how long because it depends on how thick you make your pasta. This took about 8 minutes. We like it al dente. When cooked toss it in your favorite sauce. This is not a low-calorie dish but one of our favorites!

Our favorite sauce, like most dishes I make, can be changed up in many ways.

Here’s how we did it tonight…

• 2 TBS olive oil in a skillet
• Add 1/2 brick of Philadelphia cream cheese
• salt and pepper
• Add 2 cloves of garlic chopped
• Simmer and stir with a whisk to melt cheese.
• Add 1 C half and half (because that’s what I had in the fridge) keep whisking.
• 1C FRESHLY grated parmesan cheese
• Add 1/2 cup fresh chopped parsley.
• Keep whisking
• Add one or two Tbs of the pasta water.
• Add drained pasta to the sauce and toss.

Serve and enjoy!