ever made successful home made pasta? ideas/recipes pls

[dandycandyjellybean]

someone just bought me the most lovely italian pasta machine (£3 from a garage sale - bargain or what!!!!). Am sourcing my 00 flour as we speak, any tips, hints, anyone actually make their own? love to hear your hints, tips recipes pls? in advance!

Roll pasta sheets really thin for ravioli, more faff than it's worth for a main course family dinner but worth doing once - I did pumpkin with a sage butter as it's my favourite pasta and hard to get a good one.

Spaghetti with fresh tomato sauce was amazingly simple and tasty - worth the effort.

Our italian neighbour would put the dough through the machine four or five times, before he used the sheet.
He made gorgeous ravioli, with chicken, ham, spinach and cheese mixture. Served with home made tomato sauce with basil.

You need one egg and one cup of flour for each person you want to feed. Knead it until it is stretchy but still strong. Then put it in a bowl, cover with a tea towel and leave for half an hour.

Rolling is hard to explain without showing but you start on your widest setting on your machine, and work through to the thinnest. Then you start shaping.

You can freeze it if you want once its made; make sure it is floured and cover with tin foil. You can put it straight into boiling water, just rinse it once its cooked.

My tip is to have someone else around to help- when you first use the machine four hands work better than two...

A ravioli press is a handy gadget to have Lakeland sell them for about £14.99. I make the pasta in the bread maker on the pasta dough setting. You can even flavour/colour it with beetroot or spinach. You can dry spaghetti - it doesn't have to be cooked straight away.

In addition to what annuziata said (which is great)fold the dough between each roll, you can also cut the lengths as they get to long and roll them separately.

Fresh pasta freezes really well, worth making a big batch at once! I work on 1 large egg to 100g of flour (00 is best, but bread flour or ordinary plain flour work too) and 1 extra egg yolk. Don't add any salt, the dough goes black after a while if you do and anyway, you'll salt the cooking water!

I'm vegan, and I make my own pasta with just flour and water. It's so easy my 9-year-old granddaughter has made it.