My First Venture into Pasta Making

I have had a Kitchenaid mixer for many years and use it constantly for everything from breads to cakes, frostings to cookies, and anything else you can think of. My hubby bought me the pasta maker attachment set a few years ago and I've never broken it out of the box. It has been cold and rainy here, which made me crave those thick homemade noodles in a nice hearty soup. I never purchase that type of pasta in the stores because I feed 4 boys, so the cost is just prohibitive. I am also a thrifty gal, so I buy only things that are on sale for a great price and keep a good food storage on hand, including dozens of bags of pasta I picked up for $.50 each.

This day, I just got the kick in the pants I needed to break out the pasta maker because I just couldn't get those noodles out of my head.


Making pasta was much easier than I thought. I just followed the basic egg pasta recipe that came in the Kitchenaid booklet along with my pasta attachments. The ingredients are simply egg, salt, flour, and water. It's so easy and cleanup isn't bad. I cut my noodles into fairly short lengths and tossed them with a big of flour so they wouldn't stick together


Here is my soup, it turned out exactly like I thought and was a huge hit with the family.

Ingredients:

• 1 package mild Italian sausage (you can use hot if you prefer)
• 1 medium onion chopped as desired
• 2-4 stalks celery, sliced
• 2-4 carrots cut into chunks (I used baby carrots halved lengthwise)
  
• 3 Tbsp good quality beef base
• 1 can diced tomatoes (I used petite diced)
• 1 Tbsp basil flakes
  
• 1/2 batch of homemade pasta (probably 2 cups or so)

Brown sausage and onions together and drain grease. Add beef base, celery, carrot, water, tomatoes and basil. Simmer until veggies are tender. Add pasta and cook just a few minutes, until pasta is done.

I love to serve this with my version of Red Lobster's Cheddar Bay biscuits or homemade, hot crunchy French bread. (Recipe to follow in a future post.)