Tonight, Chris surprised me with a handmade pasta making class at Taste Buds Kitchen, which specializes in fresh, handmade cooking classes and “culinary experiences.” The class was less than 20 people, and we all got grouped into stations organized into three categories – marinara sauce and fettuccine, butternut squash ravioli, and spinach ravioli. Chris and I got placed into the marinara and fettuccine group with another couple. The marinara sauce was pretty straightforward since I’ve made similar versions many times, but the pasta making part was the most exciting. We made it from scratch using just flour, olive oil, salt, and eggs, formed the dough, kneaded, moved it through the pasta machine (a KitchenAid stand mixer attachment), and left it to dry. Then the assistants helped us boil the noodles and ravioli, and we were ready to eat. Nothing compares to freshly made pasta. The texture in your hands and the mouth-feel are a world away from dried, packaged pasta noodles.

So me being me, we went home, and I immediately wanted to look at the prices of the different pasta attachments. Apparently there is no single attachment that can just have a switch flipped to produce different pasta types, like linguine, fettuccine, spaghetti; if you want to create different types, you need to buy additional attachments, which go for around $75-100 each. I personally like the wider noodles the most, as I find it far more satisfying to eat wide strips of papparadelle or fettuccine than thinner spaghetti or angel hair.

I can’t wait until we get a bigger apartment or house so that I can buy my dream KitchenAid stand mixer with all my wide noodle pasta attachments, ice cream attachment, meat grinder attachment, and sausage stuffer kit. 🙂