I wrote this back in September 2010 for one of our other websites.

A couple of days ago I looked at one of my daughters and said, “Wouldn’t it be so exciting if you made your own pasta today?” Her eyes grew in amazement and she was so excited she was swinging and tightly hugging one of my pasta books in her arms.

I go through my phases of making certain items. It has been a while since we were in our let’s make homemade pasta phase and so I thought it would be a special treat, especially if the children felt that rewarding experience from beginning to end.

So that’s what we did.

As soon everyone was done with their chores, schoolwork, projects, and cleaning up they had the rest of the afternoon and evening to work on making their very own pasta.

I am sharing this story in hopes of trying to encourage anyone who is nervous making their own pasta. My advice would be to enjoy making it and keep trying. Have fun with it and explore many possible ways to create your own homemade pasta recipes. There isn’t just one way to make pasta. There are many variations, many whole grains and flour you can use, a plethora of shapes, and a variety of textures.

It is a lot of fun! It is a lot of work to do compared to snipping open a pasta bag and pouring it in boiling water but you get more than that with homemade pasta. You’ll get a sense of accomplishment and joy in your endeavor. You’ll enjoy the beauty of creating food from the fruit of your hands. You’ll be more confident in your cooking skills and you will get wonderful satisfaction in the art of cooking and feeding your family with joy.

At a later time I will explain more about how I started my pasta making journey and the different whole grains you can mill in order to make your own pasta. I can also explain the different methods you can use if you’d like to use a non-electric machine instead of your hands entirely or even how to avoid using your hands as much as possible while still making the pasta dough yourself.

For now, I will share with you a little story to get you started. I will let you know what I told my daughter to do so that she could make her own pasta. I gave her instructions and stood afar off. I didn’t even feel the texture of the dough. I taught her to experiment and test her work and be free to learn without fear of error. And I did this by being enthusiastic with her and letting her enjoy the process.

The only thing we did for our children in their pasta making was to mill their fresh flour with our organic grains and add a little of the oil. We used about 3 cups of organic durum wheat semolina. This is one of the best grains to use for gourmet pasta making. I told my daughter that pasta making is really easy, that a lot of pasta is made with flour and water. You can add some good oil. You can even add some eggs. You can add some sea salt. And you can also add some herbs or other natural flavorings through food like spinach. There is so much you can do!

Homemade Verbal Organic Pasta Recipe

Making the Pasta Dough

So I told her to add 3 cups of flour to a metal mixing bowl. We added a little extra virgin olive oil (about a teaspoon or two). Then I told her to crack an egg in a separate container. That way she could keep tell if the egg was a good one or not and keep it from ruining the other ingredients. I told her to add a little sea salt (around two to three teaspoons). Then I told her that she could flavor it to make it taste different. I had her go through our spices section in the cupboard to look for some oregano or basil but I had just run out of it. The rest was still in my bulk containers needing to be transferred to the little spice jars. I told her that we could stick to a nice garlic flavor and she got some of our organic garlic powder. She added a little (about a couple of teaspoons) of that spice for natural flavoring.

In the mean time some hot water had cooled down for a while and it was mixed in a large Pyrex measuring cup with a pouring spout. I told her she needed about a cup of water or less to start with because I didn’t want the dough to get too wet. She was to add the water a little at a time while stirring it with a dinner fork (one of my favorite mixing tools) or a wooden spoon. I told her to add the water only until all the flour was a little wet. I told her that the dough shouldn’t be dry like the flour or wet like water but moist and tacky. It should barely stick to your hands or not stick at all. I kept saying those last sentences a few times as she kneaded the pasta dough with her hands for the final step. She told me that she did as she was told. I told her it was time to let the dough rest. She placed it into the bowl and let it rest covered.

Resting Time

She could have started rolling out the pasta dough 10-30 minutes after she let it rest but we had her wait just a little longer since we had other things to attend to in the home. If you’re trying to stick to purely soaking all your dough then I would eliminate the egg to be safe and just stick to the other ingredients and add a little of your acidic medium (like lemon juice) that you’re used to using. I have yet to do a soaked pasta dough recipe and am planning on doing so soon.

Rolling Out and Shaping the Pasta Dough

In less than an hour three of our children rushed to the kitchen to start rolling their fresh pasta dough. I told them to pinch off little balls (the size of a golf ball or smaller) at first so that it wasn’t that difficult to roll the dough with a rolling pin. They asked me if they could use some fun little cookie cutters for shaping their pasta and I told them it was a great idea. They were to get the pasta dough as thin as they could or wanted their pasta to be before cutting out it’s shape.

They had to take a little break from their pasta making so that we could eat dinner together as a family. They ate their meal well but asked to be excused to presume their pasta making. After they put their dishes away, they finished working on their pasta forming.

Cooking the Pasta

When they were done, it was time to either cook their pasta (which we almost always do right after making it) or chill it for cooking later. Since we have been so busy preparing for our move and it was getting late, we opted to have them cook the pasta the next day. It was bagged up and chilled. The next day a medium-sized pot was set to boil and in went their pasta one by one.

Coating and Seasoning the Pasta

After that, it was time to coat their pasta with a little extra virgin olive oil to prevent it from sticking and also a little grey celtic sea salt and freshly ground black pepper for flavoring. Instead of making a tomato-based sauce for it, we decided to stick to a simple sauce so that we could enjoy the rest of the events that we had coming up like fresh bread that night and sandwiches made from it for our meal.

Below I am placing more photos of their fun pasta-making day.

Enjoy!