Spaghetti From Scratch

Pasta dough setting up

I've been meaning to make spaghetti from scratch ever since I got the pasta attachment for the Kitchen Aid mixer last summer. Then Kevin and I got a hankering to make meatballs. And then I received a cook book with an easy recipe for tomato sauce from scratch. So this past weekend we decided to put it all together and make a delicious home made meal.

Kneading into fat rectangles

The pasta was pretty straight forward. It's basically eggs and flour (with some water and salt for flavor and texture). I found a video online that detailed how to use the attachment, and I'm glad I watched it. Rolling out the dough and sending it through the cutter is a process. Though thankfully it didn't take quite as long as I was anticipating. And by the last batch, Kevin and I had a pretty good system worked out.

Rolling out the dough

The meatballs were a pretty basic recipe that Kevin added some spice to. We made some similar ones for my mom's birthday party in December, so we had the basic idea down. And they aren't too different from burgers when all is said and done. The extra spice made these really flavorful and delicious.

meatballs!

Finally there was the sauce, which took about ten minutes according to the recipe. We should have cooked it for longer, though, to let it thicken up more. It was ultimately pretty thin and oily. It didn't help that we just spooned it over the pasta instead of mixing everything together. It separated and which led to a meal of pasta followed by tomato sauce. But next time we'll know. And I found a different sauce recipe that should be thicker.

The finished product

All in all it took a little less than two hours to make dinner. Things staggered pretty well (we mixed meatballs while the dough was setting and cooked the sauce while the pasta water was boiling). I think it may just have been worth the effort. Even if we did end up with comically long noodles. I'm excited to try again, now that we have a better idea of what we're doing. Though this definitely won't become a typical thing. It's way easier and cheaper to buy pasta pre-made.