Fresh Pasta!

Tonight I decided to try out my new pasta roller-outer.

It's so pretty!

I followed the recipe for the dough that was in the guide from the pasta roller, though I only used 2/5 the amounts.  I had some trouble getting it to the right consistency--first it seemed like way too much flour, so I added water (per the guide's suggestion) but then it got sticky, etc.  Eventually I had a ball of dough, which I cut into slices.

Guiding the dough through the roller was actually really fun.  And it seems like it would be a much easier way to roll out sugar cookies.  However, the guide just said to roll it to the thickness I wanted--I had no idea which thickness I wanted!  And as you can see, I still had some holes in the dough.

I decided to make the tagliolini noodles.  Which was also fun, except the noodles came out all clumped together.

Finally I tried going back to the roller to make some dough thinner, and those noodles came apart better.

 Then I left the pasta to dry for an hour, hoping that they would shrink apart as they dried.  They didn't.
Finally I boiled the noodles, and served them with chicken picatta and green beans.  (I use Giada's recipe for chicken picatta.)  I thought maybe the noodles would de-clump while boiling.  That also didn't happen.

But it was still a tasty dinner.  I think the key with the smaller tagliolini noodles is to roll the dough really thin before putting it through the cutter part.  Next time.