Homemade Noodles!

[Allie]

Our pantry, freezer, and fridge are full.  Our grocery budget is insane. Over the past few weeks I have been actively trying to avoid the stores and eat what we have.  We had some ricotta that was about to turn and all of the other fixins for lasagna, manicotti, stuffed shells, etc. 

Except noodles. 

After briefly considering mixing it all up with spaghetti noodles, I went another route.  I made lasagna noodles.  It was easy, used what we had on hand, and super delicious.  For less than a dollar in ingredients, I got a full pan of lasagna noodles plus enough left over dough to cover the noodle needs of a huge pot of minestrone soup this weekend.  I think I will be making a lot more do our pasta from now on...

Anyone else make something awesome from scratch recently?

[MsWillow]

That sounds great. Do you have a recipe recommendation?

We make a lot of bread, pizza dough, enchilada sauce, etc. I like quick, easy and freezable. Good job on problem solving your lasagna Nd using up those ingredients.

[deborah]

Having made lasagna, you can now make ravioli and other forms of stuffed pasta! They are quite easy once you have the lasagna sheets, and your friends and family will be completely awed!

There are several ways of doing it:

1. Put lasagna sheet on the bench, put very small blobs of mix in lines on the sheet with lots of room between, and put another sheet over the top. Cut between the blobs and seal the edges.
2. Cut the lasagna sheet into circles. Put a blob in the middle of the circle, fold it into 2 and seal
3. Cut the lasagna sheet into circles. Put a blob of mix in half the circles, and cover with another circle, and seal.

You can also cut your lasagna sheets into noodle strips (you could even get a wavy cutter and have wavy edged noodles).

To increase the vegetable content of my meals I often make pasta with spinach instead of eggs and water.

[Dances With Fire]

Sounds great! Nice job.

I recall my grandmother making homemade noodles all the time and seeing "drying racks" all over the kitchen as a child. She was also one hell of a baker, cakes, pies, breads, you name it.

We make a lot of stir fry with veggies from the garden as well as sauces, salsa, and home made soups.

[2ndTimer]

I make home made noodles frequently and love them.  It never occurred to me until I read this thread that lasagna noodles don't have to be the same shape they are when they come from a package.   You just saved me a lot of work.  I feel like an idiot!!!

[swick]

I JUST MISSED OUT on a screaming Craigslist deal of a kitchen aid mixer, pasta roller set and pasta extruder for $225.  I'd have resold the mixer for $150 easily (already own one ) and the value of the pasta attachments is $300 at retail. I'm searching for another deal like that. But home made pasta is amazing.

If you already have the kitchen-aid you could be on the look out at thrift sores for a manual pasta roller/cutter. Takes a little bit more work (really not much) I have found used manuals for 5.00 and they do last forever.