Do you make your own pasta?

[LadyMaryLikesCake]

If so, is it time consuming? Does it taste better than the dried stuff? I'm tempted to by a pasta machine so that I can make ravioli etc, but I'm not sure if it's a novelty and the machine will be used once before being stored.

Wine, jam, jellies, butter and cheese - yes.

Pasta - no. Just a step too far for me.

Butter? That's double cream which has been mixed (a lot), then strained through muslin?

I have flavoured vodka fermenting in the kitchen.

Done pasta - spaghetti served simply with a tomato sauce, and it does taste better, but it's a faff and tricky to get the pasta thin enough to make good ravioli...depends how you like it though.

I do occasionally make pasta but not all the time. We, especially the children, eat pasta a lot and I just don't have the time or energy to make six peoples worth. When I make it it tends to be just for the adults.
I've never bothered with ravioli though because I just know I wouldn't get it to work

How much faff?

I don't find it too much of a faff - use a basic pasta recipe from BBC food website. I whizz up the eggs and flour in a food processor so doesn't need much of a knead and then it needs a good rest (can leave it for 24 hours in the fridge). My DD enjoys helping put it through the pasta machine. It cooks really quickly and tastes fantastic. Don't do it every time we have pasta, but it is nice for a weekend meal.

I have also made extra and done tagliatelle, left to dry and given it to our parents (they are always suitably impressed!)

I have done but not often enough. We used to have a hand winding pasta maker but when DH bought me my kitchen aid mixer (aka 'the precious') he bought me the pasta making attachment and it makes it so much easier. Yes it does taste better DH loves it.

"my precious!"

A kitchen aid is on my list of 'things to get' but I don't think it will be any time soon . I like the idea of making my own pasta, I can add veg stuff to the mixture to see what happens. Pasta with sun-dried tomatoes... mmmm. Ravioli with home made bolognese or cheese and ham. The pre-made filled ravioli doesn't taste great, it's bland.

I'll look up the recipe. We eat a lot of gnocchi so that would be great to make too. I can make a batch and freeze it. It would be great to get ds to take over help.

Nope. And neither do any of the Italians I'm related to. Including dp who was a chef.

Good quality dried is infinitely better.

If you want decent bought ravioli you need the ranges which need very little cooking time (there is a Giovanna Rana range in the UK which only needs 2 minutes. That shows you it is more filling, less pasta) I bought a ravioli press, but even dp couldn't get it thin enough.

Gnocchi is easy enough to make, and doesn't taste like polyfilla when you've done it, unlike home made pasta.

I tried making Polenta once, that did taste like wallpaper paste!

I'll try Giovanna Rana's. I have a fussy ds who isn't a veg fan so it would be useful to 'meddle' with the recipe, IYKWIM.

Homemade gnocchi is definitely worth the faff and you'll need no extra equipment, just choose your potatoes carefully. It's absolutely delicious but after having homemade, the shop bought stuff no longer tempts - even the dcs stick their nose up at it.

I used to, but haven't since DD was born (she's, um, 10). Never bothered with plain stuff, but made bloody lovely ravioli - pasta was a bit thick, I expect, but the fillings were delicious. I might get the machine out when we move house; it lives at the back of a cupboard in my very overcrowded kitchen and would take about half an hour to get out.

Is it possible to buy ready to roll or ready rolled pasta like you can with pastry?

Again, it would be for ravioli making. I have a recipe I want to try but can't be bothered making the pasta. I tried it with fresh lasagne sheets but it soooo didn't work (too hard to shape around the filling)

I made a pumpkin ravioli with a sage butter - because it's hard to get a good one and I was having a nostalgic craving, they are very dangerous things to have. It was made as a main course for 4, I felt like I had been cooking all day and it disappeared in seconds....there just wasn't enough of it, everyone wanted more. Thankfully we had some bread to mop up the sauce. It was an interesting challenge but I decided to seek out a good Italian instead.

Yes, you can Eminy- Buitoni do a big roll that you can cut for lasagne and stuff. I think it would still be too thick for ravioli though, maybe if you made very big squares so you could sqwodge lots of filling in it might be OK.

Eminybob could you make an open lasagna instead?

You can buy lasagne sheets, Eminy, which are sort of fresh. I'd like to try really fresh though, with some herbs or tomatoes mixed into it.

I'll try Gnocchi, MrsGarvey, I think, and see how that goes. I'm still tempted to get a machine though. Home made ravioli... yum.

I'm not sure my kitchen is cramped enough, DontCallMeBaby. I have space for a pasta maker and a drying stand

Oooh thanks. I'll try both of those suggestions

DH makes his own pasta and I prefer it for things like ravioli but I actually like the dried stuff better for most other pasta dishes . I find it's really easy to overcook homemade pasta and it goes a bit slimy.

I have loads of ravioli flavours in my head. Tomato and mascarpone, lamb and rosemary, cheese and tomato, bolognese and red wine, pancetta and tomato with a little mozzarella, goats cheese and red onion with a little basalmic vinegar, sweet potato and pine nuts. I'm not sure if they will all work but there's no harm in trying

I also have the Kitchen Aid pasta attachment. It's fab. I don't bother making fresh lasagne but the fresh linguine it makes is divine. Especially with carbonara sauce. (But now off to make spaghetti Bol with DeCecco dried which is pretty good too!)

At carboot sales there usually are lots of pasta machines for a few quids,u could give it a try then didn't waste lots of money if you don't use it?

I have no idea where they are here. I could try eBay maybe Thank you.

I made some tortellini with ds2 recently. It was pretty easy to get the pasta thin enough but the filling and shaping was incredibly time consuming. And then it all disappeared in seconds.

The worst thing was that DS2 announced that he liked the sainsbury's stuff better!