fresh pasta

A few weeks ago, Maddie and I set out to make fresh pasta one morning while Caleb was napping. We had so much fun, and it really wasn't that hard at all! We made enough pasta for one meal, plus enough ravioli for 2 meals. And we did it all, start to finish, clean-up included, in just under 2 hours.

We didn't follow a specific recipe, but obeyed the common rule I've read: 1 egg for each cup of flour, plus enough water to make a supple dough. I think we used 4 cups of flour (so that made 3 meals for our family, plus a bit of leftovers). To make it healthier, we used barley flour. I was just reading in an Italian cookbook that traditionally barley flour was also used to make pasta in some regions. It gave the pasta a nutty flavor which we ended up liking. I'd definitely make it again.

Here's Maddie helping to roll out the dough.

Here's our pasta drying--we handcut it.

Here's our ravioli waiting for the top layer of dough. Unfortunately I did not have any ricotta in the fridge. So, for the filling I used cream cheese instead, along with some fresh basil, minced garlic, fresh squeezed lemon juice, and a little salt & pepper. It turned out to be a very yummy filling!

Here's the finished ravioli drying.