Whole wheat pasta

Thanks again to Matt and Alisha for the pasta maker. I made my first batch this week and it turned out pretty good. Though making pasta may seem simple and only require a handful of ingredients, it's the technique that take a bit of time.

3.5 cups of whole wheat flour
2 TSP water
4 eggs
Pinch of salt

That may seem simple enough but it's not. You add all those ingredients to the mixing bowl but then you have to add water or flour based on how the dough comes together. I probably spent a good 15 minutes just making sure the dough was correct, a process that hopefully won't take me as long next time.

And that's just the star, after getting the dough right you need to cut it into smaller pieces and starting feeding it though the machine, considering one batch of dough is cut into six or seven pieces that all need to be separately it though the pasta maker it's time consuming. I easily spent more than an hour from start to finish on this alone.

You need to run each piece through the maker multiple times, one the first setting along you probably need to run it through about five times. It's less after that as you get the pasta thinner, but still a process. Again, having done it once I'm hoping it won't take me as long next time. I was making fettuccine this time and had it on the five setting for thinness, which was a bit too thin, next time I'll stop on five.

After you get the pasta to the desired thinness you have to swap out attachments and put the pasta cutter on. This was easy enough, though I did have some clumping when I had it sitting in the bowl. I did toss it with a little bit of flour but maybe a bowl wasn't the right conveyance for fresh pasta, maybe a platter would be better? If anybody has any advice I would welcome it.

Overall, it turned out ok. I didn't help that I overcooked the pasta slightly. The directions said two minutes but I probably could have yanked it after 90 seconds. I'm looking forward to making some stuffed pastas and some spinich pasta for lasagna.

I served this with some marinara that I made awhile back.