Simple ingredients of flour, eggs, olive oil and water become pasta; the soul satisfying comfort food of generations of families. Even if you did not grow up in an Italian home, noodles are a staple of many cultures around the world. Making your own pasta at home is easy and rewarding. If you’ve never tasted freshly made pasta, you are in for a real treat. You will have as much, if not more fun making it as eating it and it is an activity that can bring the whole family together. So, roll up your sleeves and plan on having fun.

One simple tool can really make pasta making fun, and that is a pasta machine. There are electric models as well as the more familiar hand crank types, but either version will make delicious pasta and make the process easier. The big advantage a pasta maker has over the hand roll method is that you get a consistent thinness throughout the dough and the dough becomes very stretchy, which is a quality you are looking for. If you are not familiar with pasta makers, some of the name brands to look for are Lello, Imperia and Weston, for electric models, and Atlas, CucinaPro and Imperia for the manual types. If you already have a Kitchenaid mixer, you can buy the Kitchenaid pasta attachment and mix and roll the dough with the same machine. My hand crank Atlas pasta machine has been the favored tool in our kitchen for rolling thin sheets of dough and everybody gets a turn at the crank.

If you are going to mix the dough by hand, start by placing the flour in a large bowl and make a well in the center. Crack the eggs into a smaller bowl and beat them lightly to break the yolks. Add the oil and water and mix well before pouring the liquids into the well in the center of the flour. Continue to mix with a fork or a wooden spoon until the dry ingredients are moistened and begin to clump together. Now roll up your sleeves and get ready to get your hands on the dough to finish the mixing.

Dust your hands with flour and begin to gather the clumps and begin kneading the dough right in the bowl. Grab the mass over onto itself, pushing and turning and folding the dough until it no longer sticks to the side of the bowl. Once you have one cohesive clump of dough, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface, a large wooden cutting board works great, and continue to knead for 2 to 3 minutes.

You are done kneading when the dough is soft throughout, you can’t feel any lumps, the surface has a sheen to it and it feels and looks smooth. If the dough seems too sticky add a little flour, a little at a time, while you are kneading. If the dough seems too dry or hard, sprinkle a little water on the dough and continue to knead it until it becomes soft and pliable. When you have finished kneading the dough, give it a rest by letting it sit on the board covered with a clean, soft kitchen towel for about 30 minutes. This will relax and soften the dough so it will be easier to roll out.

Your pasta machine will come with basic instructions on how to process the dough. The basic steps are to roll pieces of dough through the rollers at thinner and thinner settings until you get nice, elongated, resilient pieces of dough. From there you cut the dough into whatever shapes you want. Dough may be cut and formed by hand, like simple papardelle, which are strips about 1 1/2 inches wide. All the pasta maker machines come with some attachments for cutting the dough. Tagliatelle and tagliolini are common pasta shapes that most of the manual machines produce. Electric pasta machines frequently have attachments that can extrude the dough into shapes like spaghetti and capellini.

Once you have cut your pasta into the desired shapes, gently take the pasta and dust it lightly with flour. Let the pasta sit undisturbed on a baking sheet or bread board for the surface to dry a little before cooking. You can cook your pasta straight away, and enjoy it with a favorite sauce. If you are making more than enough pasta for one meal you can dry little “nests” of pasta and use them within a few days, or you can freeze them. Some people prefer to use pasta drying racks, which will dry the pasta in long strands rather than little nests.

Once your family has had a hand in making fresh pasta at home and eating the results, you won’t want to go back to commercially processed pasta again. Homemade pasta has a delicate, rich flavor and a smoother texture than store bought pastas. Making pasta at home is a fun family project that everyone can do together and it will become one of the warm and comforting memories you share in the future. So start a family tradition of fun and laughter and good food. Make pasta-making a regular event in your kitchen.

Making fresh pasta at home has been a Lauder family event for years. Kids, grandkids, friends and neighbors all take a hand in making the dough and sitting at the table to savor the results. Watch a video on rolling dough through a pasta machine on Geri’s website, browse great cookbooks and select a pasta machine for your next family pasta party.