MAKING PASTA

One of my most favorite pasta recipes of all time is Ottolenghi's Saffron Tagliatelle with Spiced Butter. My friend Elizabeth introduced me to it a few years ago, and I made it recently to my great joy and delight (but didn't document with a photo, alas). And while making that recipe, which calls for making fresh tagliatelle, I remembered how easy it is to make pasta from scratch and resolved to do more of it, to practice and get real comfortable with it, and maybe one day a pasta maker will even be a part of the picture.

I actually can't remember the recipe I used to make this version photographed here, but I do remember they said to try making the dough in a food processor, and I also used half regular flour and half semolina flour.  After mixing and kneading, I let it rest for about half an hour before rolling out and cutting, and then boiled it in water for 2-3 minutes.  I tossed it with pesto and we had it for lunch that day outside on our picnic bench.  It was good, not exactly what I was going for - I'm looking for a chewier dough (I think the trick may be to hang it to dry for a couple of hours after cutting?) but - but Logan loved it and had several bowls.  I'm going to try again, with this method and really simple recipe and have the girls do it with me too. I'll experiment but having one batch of dough rest for a while, and another one do the same thing but also hang the noodles to dry and see if I can tell a difference.  I'll likely report back!