The best homemade pasta

The Captain makes the best home made pasta I have ever had - so many of our friends and relatives bought pasta makers many years ago when they were popular, but NONE of them ever mastered the technique the way he has.

I purchased our machine, on the spur of the moment, from a tv infomercial.  It is a Ronco Popeil machine, and over the years we have replaced several pieces of it.... all under warranty, I should add.  The customer service has been great.

Recently, I asked The Captain, aka The Noodle Expert, to start using whole wheat flour in place of white flour in the blend.  We do not replace the Semolina flour though; that would make the  noodles much too soft and mushy.

Whole Wheat Pasta - Home Made

• 1-3/4 cups Semolina flour
• 1-3/4 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 Tbs olive oil
• 2 large fresh eggs

He starts by assembling the machine and choosing the die for the desired noodle shape.  Today it will be linguini.

Then, he starts the machine and mixes the dry ingredients in the dough bin.

While that is spinning, he blends the oil and eggs in the measure cup that came with the machine, and adds water to a marked spot on the cup.

Then, while the pasta machine is mixing the dry ingredients, he drizzles the wet ingredients into a slot on the top of the machine.  He watches the mixture and adds more as it begins to bind together.

He has a keen eye and experience has taught him what the perfect blend should look like.  Sometimes he adds all the wet ingredients, and sometimes he doesn't.  It depends a lot on the humidity in the air.

The mixture should be mealy, and it doesn't really resemble dough at all.

Then he changes the setting on the machine from 'mix' to 'extrude',  and the dough is pressed into the die that shapes the noode... and voila!  We have linguini!  We always have a little discussion on how long the noodles should be.  I like them long; he likes them shorter.



I like to divide it into 4 separate batches.  We usually eat one the day it is fresh, and then I freeze the others.  When it is time to cook it, I drop the batch into boiling water (yes, right from frozen), in a large pot cause it foams up a bit.  I keep it at a rapid boil for 10 minutes, then drain and rinse with hot water.

I like the pasta to be the main focus of the meal so usually serve it with a tomato and vegetable sauce.  Fansastic!

When I plate it, I have 1/3 and he has 2/3.  I do weigh it to get accurate measurments.

So, my portion works out to 1/12th of the total recipe.

Weight Watchers P+ = 5. 
Calories 179;  Protein 7g; Carbohydrate 31g; Fat 4g; Fibre 3g

Disclaimer:  there is a small bit of waste from mixed ingredients that are left either in the mixing bin or in the die.  It is negligible and I have  not taken that, or the occasional unused wet ingredients, into consideration when calculating the nutritional information, and the Weight Watchers P+ values.