January's Goal

This year rather than making the usual new year's resolutions like losing weight, saving money, etc. I decided to make fun goals. I love to cook and bake, but there are some things that scare me. I think we each have our own things that you want to do but you are afraid you will fail so you just stick to what you know. I wanted to get out of that rut and not have to hear my husband say one more time that he wanted me to make pasta. So I have set a goal for each month to make a food that I find hard or at least I think will be hard.
For January, I decided to tackle pasta. I kept putting off. I waited till the 30th to try it. I really should start earlier in the month so if I do fail, I have more month to try again. Thankfully making pasta did go fairly well. I searched on Pinterest for instructions and got to it.

400g or 3 cups of flour and 4 large eggs. Very basic ingredients.  



Place flour on counter in a mound, dig a well, and crack the eggs into the well.











Whisk the eggs with a fork and gradually pull flour into eggs.
As dough gets thicker you may want to use your hands.








Once dough is a ball begin kneading. You will have some flour left over when you begin kneading. You will pull most of it in as you knead.
Knead for 5 - 10 minutes. If it becomes crumbly add a little bit of warm water.






After kneading, wrap in plastic wrap and put in the refrigerator for 20 - 30 minutes.









Remove from refrigerator and cut into 4 pieces. Roll into balls. One at a time take a ball and smash.










Flatten it enough to fit into the dough roller and dust the dough with flour.  I used the pasta attachments for my Kitchenaid mixer.








Starting with the dough roller at the largest width. Turn mixer on and run dough through roller, fold dough, dust with flour, and run through dough roller again. Repeat 4 to 7 times.







You will begin to see the dough change and the texture improve. Once the dough looks smooth, change the width on the roller to the next smaller width.






Dust the dough with flour and run it through. Keep doing this until it is the thickness you want. My widest width was a 1 and it goes down to 8. I stopped at 5. After I got to 3, I used a pizza cutter to cut the dough in half because it got too long to work with easily.
























After I got to the thickness I wanted, I changed attachment to the fettucine attachment. I ran the dough through it to cut it.























The next part I haven't perfected yet. I laid my pasta out on a sheet pan covered in parchment paper. The noodles stuck together. I guess I need to get a drying rack.
I put the noodles in the spare room to dry. I live in a very dry climate so they dried over night. I made chicken fettucine alfredo the next night. They took a little longer to cook than I expected. But they were sooo good.
I felt pretty confident after making the pasta. I cleaned up and began to clean the attachments with the brushes that were provided. Not having any directions, I turned on the fettucine attachment and started brushing. The brush got sucked into the rollers. I tried to fix it, but wasn't successful.


Hopefully my husband can fix it. There is nothing like ruining a good mood with breaking an expensive piece of equipment.
Hopefully February's goal won't end the same. I haven't decided but I think I'm going to try making mozzarella. It might scare me even more than pasta.




Want to check out my other goals for the year? You can find them all on this post.

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