Homemade Gluten-Free pasta

Everyone likes to have pasta.  Homemade pasta is simple and easy to make, and if you want to make it without a knife, invest in a pasta maker.  With pasta makers being around $15-$30 for a manual one.  its an investment you will use in the kitchen.

This simple recipe is easy to make, and serves 4 depending on size.  If you judge your portion size like the food companies, it will feed 8 to 10 people (or a family of 4 normal people).  Once you make pasta, you will likely do it for every meal.

This recipe can be used for regular pasta, if you remove the xantham gum and just use all purpose flower.  Gluten free flowers need  the xantham gum to make the bonds that are normally formed by the gluten

Ingredients:

1. 2 and 1/4 cups of gluten free all purpose flower;
2. 2 heaping tablespoons of xantham gum;
3. salt and pepper (optional but recommended); and
4. 5 large eggs.

Instructions:

In a mixing bowl combine all the ingredients.  with a fork make a well in the center and crack in the eggs.  Beat the eggs with a fork, slowly adding flower until a shaggy dough forms.  Then turn it out on a your counter top (I recommend using cooking spray over more flower).  Keep kneading the dough until it forms a cohesive ball, then kneed for 3 more min. 

Once that is done, wrap the dough in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 30 min up to a few days.  once the dough has had a chance to moisten in the refrigerator; roll it out on a lightly flowered (or sprayed) counter top.  

With your rolling pin, flatten the dough into sheets, just thick enough to run through the largest setting on the flat pasta maker.  Once you have ran those strips through on the large setting, fold in half and run through again.  Then run the strip through a smaller size, I go two down, and cur the sheet to the length you want your pasta.  Attach the cutting head, and run the strips through it.  Dust the fresh cut pasta with flower tom prevent from sticking to each other.  

To cook, use the sauce of whatever you are making, or cook in heavily salted boiling water for 3 to 5 min or until floating.  I personally prefer to cook in the sauce for the added flavour. 

Have you made homemade pasta before?  how did it turn out?