Love In The Kitchen: Pasta Party

Hi guys it's been a while but please forgive me because I have something very exciting to share with you

I got a pasta machine.

(Ooooooh.... chrome)

And, you know, the only way to properly break in a pasta machine is to throw a pasta party.

So, I invited over some friends and they brought a couple sauces and we had bunches of fun

So, to make pasta dough, you need 1 1/2 cups of durum wheat flour (or semolina) and 1 1/2 cups of All-Purpose unbleached white flour. Mix that together and put it on the table (or a baking board). Create a crater in the middle, and add 4 eggs, 2 Tablespons of water and 2 Tablespoons of olive oil.

Then you whisk that together gently with a fork, slowly incorporating the flour to the egg mixture.

[and get real excited]

Then using your hands {And I used a dough cutter to help me out with this} knead to combine the ingredients together fully.

It should form a nice, doughy ball, like this. Knead again for about ten minutes

Then let the dough rest, covered, for ten more minutes.

If you don't have a pasta machine, no sweat! Roll out your dough with a rolling pin to your desired thickness.

If you do have a pasta machine, be sure to follow the directions included in the manual.

After cutting the pasta, make sure to separate the strands [DON'T LET THEM TOUCH] before putting them in boiling salted water.

{about a Tablespoon of salt will do for the water}

I made a pretty simple olive oil based sauce-

A few Tablespoons of olive oil (A little more than what will just cover the bottom of the pan- remember you can always add more), one clove of garlic minced, a little bit of sliced shallot- let that get slightly brown and add your pasta in with some fresh chives, and salt and pepper.