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Is it worth all of the time and effort to make homemade pasta? In a word, yes. But we’ll look into it in a bit more detail so that you can see precisely why you would want to spend the time and effort to make lasagna, tortellini, and other pasta delights at home.
Why you may hesitate
Making homemade pasta makes time; there’s no doubt about it. If you are usually an impatient person who doesn’t enjoy taking your time to get results, you may hesitate to make pasta at home.
You may also not have enough space in your kitchen. To make homemade pasta, you need countertop space such as wooden boards, marble surfaces, or countertops that lend themselves to rolling out and cutting pasta.
How making pasta can be healing
Making homemade pasta can be healing for the same reason that you might hesitate to do it first: it takes time.
How can doing something that takes 2 hours instead of 10 minutes be healing, you ask? Well, the secret is in the process itself.
The slow, steady, and thoughtful process of making pasta is a highly mindful activity. In our society of rush, rush, rush, we are getting more stressed and are accustomed to everything being ready NOW. However, studies show that mindfulness – and by that, we don’t necessarily mean meditation – is one of the top tools you can implement to make a massive difference to your emotional and mental well-being.
Making homemade pasta requires sustained focus, concentration, and calm work. Measuring the ingredients, kneading the dough, rolling out the dough to the right consistency, slicing the pasta… all of these things need to be done with care. In other words, they require us to be mindful.
How making pasta can bring us together
Are you sometimes at a loss when you need to come up with an engaging family activity? In these days of reduced social opportunities with worldwide lockdowns, cooking together as a family can be the perfect opportunity to enjoy some quality time together.
Younger children can mix the dough and cut pasta with child-friendly pasta cutters, whereas older children can learn a skill that will stand them in good stead their whole lives. Anyone who can make homemade pasta will be popular at parties or university – and pasta is a perfectly inexpensive and delicious meal that goes with just about any topping or sauce.
So rather than another night of Netflix and microwaved popcorn, try a family pasta-making evening.
Making your own pasta can save money
Pasta isn’t expensive to buy compared to other foods, but homemade pasta costs more to buy. You can make large batches of your fresh pasta and store the excess. Fresh pasta, if properly stored, can last for about three months in the freezer. You can make your fresh lasagnas, eat one and freeze the other, sauce and all.
Making pasta can bring friends together
Many websites and YouTube videos show you how to make homemade pasta, but one of the best ways to learn is from friends or relatives.
Find someone in your neighborhood who makes pasta – you may know an older person who would love to pass their knowledge on to younger folk. Or if you know a friend who makes their own, ask them if they’d organize a pasta-making evening for a few of you to laugh and learn together.
How to make the process even easier
If you are keen to learn to make homemade pasta, you’ll want to invest in quality ingredients such as excellent flour and fresh eggs.
Another tool you can invest in – and it doesn’t cost much – is a pasta roller and cutter such as this one at https://unocasa.com/products/pasta-maker. A pasta roller will control the thickness of your pasta noodles for you. If your noodles are evenly thick, they’ll cook perfectly.
Pasta makers will allow you to still enjoy the process of mindfully measuring ingredients, kneading the dough, and shaping your pasta. You’ll have noodles that are evenly spread so that if you want to make things like ravioli, each square of fresh pasta will be the same thickness.
You can also pick up ravioli molds to make all kinds of fun pasta shapes.
Don’t forget the fillings
A significant advantage of making your homemade pasta is that you can custom-make the fillings.
You can get really creative and have fun with your ravioli, tortellini, and cannelloni. Try fillings like asparagus, cashew ricotta, shrimp or crab, duck, butternut squash with gorgonzola, and more.
