Making pasta at home is definitely time-consuming, but just as rewarding. The flavor and texture of the pasta can’t be beat, even by buying fresh pasta from a pasta store, in my opinion. Further, if you want to use quality, healthy ingredients (whole grain flour, organic eggs) you can. And then there’s the volcano aspect . . .

Here’s the (easy) list of ingredients:

Mound the flour on a clean surface and clear out a hole in the middle. Crack the eggs in the hole, add the salt and olive oil to the center, and start beating the egg with a fork. The edges of the volcano of flour will just work their way into the egg mixture. Once the mixture is pretty smooth, you might need to help the flour walls come in a little bit – just be careful to help from the highest peaks first. Once the fork isn’t really doing the trick, start kneading. After about five minutes of kneading, wrap the ball in plastic wrap and refrigerate for half an hour.

Using extra flour, roll out small chunks of the dough into large ovals about 1/4″ thick. Use a piece of dough about the size of a clementine, or a little larger, per oval. Use plenty of extra flour here to keep this from sticking.

Get out your trusty Imperia pasta machine. Roll the ovals through the bottom area starting at level 1 and going to levels 3 then 5, with about three passes through each size with each oval. If any weak spots or holes appear in the dough, just fold it over and keep rolling it through.

Then, flour the sheets again. Finally, you can roll them through the cutting areas, or cut the sheets manually to make other shapes. Tonight we made small rectangles, wet the middle, and folded them into bowties.