What is it about kids and dough? It’s just so fun to play with and to eat. My daughter, Emily, got in trouble at the age 5 for eating the Play Dough at school. Probably my fault as I am a big fan of eating cookie dough and my kids are too. Poor Emily, she assumed all dough was edible.
My sister Kathie’s kids are still in the “dough is fun” age. They’ve had a lot of snow and she was desperate for indoor family fun. So she decided to do something with her kids that our Italian grandmother did with us–make pasta dough from scratch.
They had a blast rolling, cutting and shaping — and it is so much easier than you might think. Even better, no fancy equipment required. You can make different traditional pasta types such as cavatelli, vermicelli or gnocchi. Or use cookie cutters and create your own special family pasta shape — with the help of your kids!
Easy Fresh Tomato Sauce and Meatball Recipe
Conversation Starters
1. Can you name the favorite color, movie, and food of everyone at the table?
2. If you could snap your fingers and be anywhere in the world right now, where would you go?
3. Tell us about something nice you did for someone today?
- 4 cups flour
- 4 eggs + 1 extra yolk
- Pinch of salt
- ½ tsp. olive oil
- Combine flour with eggs and 1 extra egg yolk, a pinch of salt and 1/2 teaspoon of olive oil in the food processor until little pebbles form (30-60 seconds). You can also add seasonings to this dough like salt, pepper, basil, whatever floats your boat.
- Turn dough out onto a floured surface and knead the dough a few times until it is one smooth ball. Let the dough rest for 20 minutes under a towel or plastic wrap.
- After the dough has rested cut the dough into manageable pieces. I cut mine into fourths. Send the dough through a pasta machine or roll out thin and cut by hand.
- To make the "cavatelli like" shape we rolled the dough into long thin "worms." Then cut 1/2 inch pieces and pressed a thumb into each one to flatten and then rolled the two sides together.
- Cook the pasta in salted water from 2-5 minutes depending on what type of pasta you made. Fresh pasta cooks a lot faster than boxed pasta so keep an eye on it.
- NOTE: If you don't have a food processor, use the dough hook on a mixer or do it the old fashioned way and mix it all by hand!
