Homemade- Noodles!

I remember when I was younger, about 28 years ago, my great-grandma (who lived right beside us), always made lots of delicious goodies. One of the favorites was her noodles. After she went home to be with the Lord, we would buy noodles from this older lady that lived not too far from us. I remember how much of a treat that was. She had a huge freezer and when people would stop by for noodles, she would go into that big freezer and pull out bags of noodles.

Yesterday, I asked a friend to come over and show me HOW to make noodles. I had bought a "noodle maker" several years ago, off of Ebay, but just never used it. I didn't know how! The directions were mostly in Italian! I bought a Marcato, which I guess is suppose to be pretty good.

So, my friend Andrea came over, and brought her Kitchenaid Mixer with Noodle maker attachments, that her grandma had got her.

There are really 3 ways you could make noodles, if you desired. One is like my friend, you can get attachments for your Kitchenaid. Or you can do like I did, get a noodlemaker from somewhere like Ebay. Or you can roll out and cut noodles by hand.

First, we started with unbleached flour and fresh eggs:

We used flour, small bit of salt and baking powder, water and eggs!

You knead the dough a bit to get it mixed, then let it rest for about 20 minutes, then you cut it into smaller balls and let those rest for a bit longer.

After the smaller balls rest, you take them through your "roller" in you noodle maker. You do this several times in order to make sure they are not too sticky, and to make sure they are mixed well! IF you were doing this by hand it would end up looking probably the same way, here:

Then, it's time to cut, when those are a little drier and not sticky at all. It's funny, pretty quickly you can feel the ones that are dry and ready.

Then you cut! You can do this with your noodle maker, or I am sure it would do well by hand also. Just cut with a sharp knife or pizza cutter. We didn't have any drying racks, or even much room to dry the noodles, so we dried them on baking sheets like this:

Every 5 minutes or so, we would "fluff" them a bit, so they wouldn't stick together and so they would dry faster.

I left my noodles out overnight, and they dried. My friend suggested that I freeze them though, because IF all of the moisture is not out of the noodles, they will mold. =( So, you can freeze them, I put my in Ziploc baggies.

Then when it is time to eat, take them out and cook them like you would any other noodles!

Have you ever made noodles? Do you remember your grandmother or great-grandmother making noodles? I know my hubby said he remembers his mom making noodles, with a bunch of Mennonite women from their church. Have you ever ate homemade noodles? What is your favorite way to eat them?

Hope you learned something, or at least was able to take a walk down memory lane! We will be enjoying these noodles tonight!