Maltagliata

Because I am a lover of all-things-Italian, I wanted to make homemade pasta last week.  It was a super fun process and I learned a LOT about how to make pasta and how to not make pasta!  It's a fairly easy process too!  I'll share my do's and don'ts:

DO get your 14 year old step daughter to help.  It's fun for everyone.  She gets to put her hands in sticky dough and make a mess...what could be better??

DO use a recipe that you trust and love, like for me...I use Frances Mayes because she is my American-turned-almost-Italian-guru.

Oh and DO rotate your pictures when you upload them.  I do not;)

DO have bigger counters than I do, if possible.  You need a lot of space!

DON'T worry about having a pasta maker machine.  Or...DO worry about it.  These are our "badly cut pasta" noodles, or what the Italians call Maltagliata:

MALTAGLIATI

Maltagliati literally means 'badly (mal) cut (tagliati)'. So maltagliati pasta basically comprises very roughly chopped shapes of pasta. These shapes don't take a particular form as such - you can just chop any fresh pasta you've made into medium sized strips or shapes, using a sharp knife or pizza/ravioli cutter, and call it maltagliati.

Maltagliati is also often produced using scraps of leftover pasta dough (or you could, for instance, break packet lasagna sheets into bits).

We don't have a pasta machine yet (oh but do I want one for my Kitchen Aid!!  So badly!!)

DO roll your pasta out as thin as you can make it.  We didn't:/  Whoops!

DO cut your maltagliata in anyway you want.  It's badly cut, so anything is a go!!

DON'T pile them on top of each other, they will stick together.

DO make a yummy sauce.  We made Chicken Alfredo.  yum yum!

DON'T laugh at our pasta;)

DON'T realize halfway through the process that you have used self-rising flour instead of all purpose.

DON'T use self-rising flour.  It's comical how big the noodles turned out!

DO enjoy your pasta, no matter how it turns out.  It all tastes the same.  YUMMY!