Now that's al dente!

For Christmas, I was the lucky recipient of a set of pasta roller attachments for my Kitchen Aid mixer. Now some of you might say, "so what?," but I say, "WOO HOO!"

Making fresh pasta is very simple and the apparatus (apparati?) are easy to use. Pasta dough, depending on what you want to make, is essentially flour and water. You can use different kinds of flour, add eggs and/or olive oil among other things.

My first several batches were made from semolina flour, water, and eggs. The first part is rolling it out, then get it to the right thickness, then cut it to the size you want (spaghetti or fettucine). I tell ya, there's absolutely nothing like fresh pasta. With the first batches, I made fettuccine with homemade Alfredo sauce (another easy recipe of butter, cream, and Parmesan).

The bad news? Well, I'm currently on a quest to lose 20 lbs in 30 days, so fresh pasta is definitely OUT of the question. However, when carbo-loading is back in order, you know I'll be cranking out sheets of this stuff.