Hello friends!

Last year, I one of the accounts I follow on Instagram shared a video of floral print pasta sheets by Fiona Afshar (@cookingwithfiona). The bright colors, patterns, and prints she creates out of pasta dough completely changed my expectations of what I thought pasta could be. Ever since, I’ve been addicted to pasta making videos by Fiona and I announced to my family and friends that one of my next hobbies would be pasta making.

After watching a video by Fiona on how to make plain pasta dough from scratch, I set up my dough making station outside and started to create my pasta. To be honest, I didn’t really have much of a plan when it came to creating my first pasta dough. I just wanted to successfully make my dough, roll it, and cooking it in hopes that it would turn out at delicious.

DIY Pasta:

Step 1: Making the dough

The plain dough recipe consists of only four main ingredients:

4 eggs
3 cups of flour
pinch of salt
Tablespoon of olive oil

After making a well with my flour, I centered my eggs into the basin of my flour and started to gently stir with my fork. Simply stirring the eggs in the flour is enough to gently combine the flour and eggs together. Once my mixture started to turn a creamy yellow color, I started to combine the rest of the flour and knead my dough. This part was MESSY so next time, I’ll be sure to wear an apron.

For about ten minutes, I kneaded my dough for about until my dough felt thoroughly combined.

I loved seeing my dough come together. It very much looks and feels just like playdough and there’s something so rewarding about seeing my first batch of dough form into a happy ball.

Once I was finished kneading the dough, I let it rest for about an hour. In the meantime, I read over my instructions on how to make cheese from scratch using the DIY Cheese Kit my friend recently bought me for Christmas.

Note: My dough did dry out a bit when I left it in my covered bowl, so next time I would keep my dough a plastic bag to lock in more moisture.

Step 2: Turning dough into pasta

After my dough was done resting, I set up my new pasta maker and cleaned it for use. Another friend bought me this pasta maker off Amazon. It wasn’t super expensive and it’s very easy to set up and store.

To prepare my dough for rolling, I sliced my dough in four parts and formed them into squares. To keep the dough from sticking, I lightly floured each piece before putting it into the pasta maker. I was way too impatient to create the proper folds in my pasta to make even sheets, but if you want instructions on how to fold your pasta before pressing it, click here.

To press my pasta, I used the largest setting then dialed back from one to two. I didn’t want my pasta to be too thin because I knew that would make it more difficult to handle later.

To make my pasta a little extra special, I added dill and oregano to press into the dough. I was inspired by Loria Stern’s (@loriastern) pressed flower foods, but especially her cookies. I can’t wait for spring to try out some of her recipes with fresh edible flowers.

Step 3: Drying the pasta

In my excitement to make my own pasta, I forgot to buy a pasta rack to dry my pasta. So for the time being, I used a deep pot steamer to hang my pasta on. I’ve also heard of people using clothing racks to hang their pasta, so I suppose anything goes!

DIY Cheese:

While my pasta is drying, I made an ambitious attempt at making cheese from scratch. Using a kit from Farm Steady, I gathered my ingredients to make mozzarella from scratch.

Step 1: Heating the milk

First, I combined by half gallon of whole milk with my vegetable rennet solution and citric acid. Sadly, I swapped my citric acid solution for vegetable rennet, so my cheese instantly started to curdle before the citric acid could properly combine. As a result, the texture of my cheese didn’t turn out as elastic as it should. It definitely tastes like fresh cheese though!

Step 2: Draining the cheese

Being the determined person that I am, I tried to salvage my cheese. After stirring and heating my curds and whey, I drained my curds into the cheese basket and let it sit for ten minutes.

Step 3: Forming and stretching the mozzarella:

As you can see, my curds are still too crumbly to completely form into mozzarella balls but I tried to heat and re-form them in the re-heated whey. anyways. What’s supposed to happen over time is the cheese will eventually become elastic enough to stretch and form into mozzarella. After watching the tutorial video on repeat, I still couldn’t figure this step out and I think it’s because my curds never fully formed.

After re-heating and re-rolling my mozzarella balls, I was finally able to make a few of them come together enough to throw in my ice bath. After using a half gallon of milk, I only made FIVE mozzarella balls. If I learned anything it’s that cheese is expensive because of the volume of milk it takes to make such a small amount of cheese.

I’ll never look at a charcuterie board the same way ever again.

Note: The cheese making process is not for the faint of heart. Granted I messed up very early on in the process and I was already tired from making the pasta, so maybe my decreasing stamina was starting to show. The tricky part about cheese is that there are a lot of temperature changes that need to happen while forming the curds and it’s quite the process to get right. If you’re up for it, read the full instructions and watch the kit tutorial video here.

By the way, I am totally convinced you do not need this kit to make your own cheese. Though I’m not sure where you can buy citric acid and vegetable rennet, I’m sure you can find it somewhere online to make your own cheese.

To top off my pasta, I added Vodka sauce and spicy chicken sausage from Trader Joes. Five whole hours later and I’m so proud of how my first batch of pasta came out. Here are some things I learned:

Make the pasta dough in advance. According to Fiona, dough tastes better after resting over night.
Buy a pasta rack! Though my pasta was able to dry just fine on the pot, the pasta stuck together and broke while I was trying to move it from pot to pot.
The herbs didn’t really stick to the pasta once it was placed in the pot to cook, but it does add flavor to the boiling water and I think the aesthetics are worth it.
Cheese is literally a science experiment you get to eat. How people centuries ago figured out to make cheese without a thermometer is beyond me, but I’m glad they did. If they could do it, so can you.

I can’t wait to share my pasta making experience with my friends. Making pasta is a fun activity to do both alone or with friends and it’s doesn’t require much. Like so many good things in life, homemade pasta is simple but the experience of making it is priceless.

Buon appetito!

xx

Kiana