Home made pasta

I got a pasta maker for my birthday and we seem to be eating nothing but pasta since! Though the every first attempt was far from successful, I quickly sussed it out. The fact that I naturally tend to start with the most complex things, didn't help here, either. Instead of taking baby steps and making simple spaghetti or tagliatelle first, I had a go at making ravioli :-)
Well, I ate my humble pie and next time I made simple soup pasta. Successfully! :-) It reminded my of the childhood days when my gran would make a delicious soup with home-made pasta when I stayed with her. Of course, I keep hearing questions, like: why bother making something you can buy in every single shop? Well, I bother as the home-made pasta is incomparably better! :-P

To make basic pasta dough you need:

1 cup of flour
1 egg
a pinch of salt
a dash of olive oil
water if the dough is to dry
more flour - if the dough is to sticky, also to sprinkle on the worktop

The proportions above are enough for 4 servings of soups, if you need more the rule is that you need an egg per each cup of flour, and add water or more flour as needed.

Mix the ingredients in a large bowl and knead the dough to combine well. It's ready when the consistency is smooth and the dough is flexible. Leave for about 30 minutes in a fridge to rest, then roll it flat and cut, or use the pasta maker to roll and cut it for you (makes life a lot easier, I reckon). What's important, fresh pasta cooks a lot quicker than dried, so depending on the type it will be ready in between 1 minute (spaghetti/linguini) to 2-3 minutes (thicker type tagliatelle) from putting it into the pan with boiling (salted) water.

I quickly became more creative with my pasta, and soon enough I added the "wow  factor" to my pasta dishes. The effects you can see below. :-)