Homemade Garganelli with Fresh Garden Tomato Sauce

So another fabulous shower gift (that probably only I would register for) was a gnocchi board. (Thanks, Alice!) While I'm super excited to make gnocchi, I wanted to try garganelli. It's a time consuming, penne style pasta that really appealed to me. I was waiting for Jamie to come home Sunday afternoon, so I thought I would take advantage of my fresh tomatoes and time to spare and try it. Yum! Any fresh pasta is great, but these are really pretty noodles. Certainly a treat. In contrast, the tomato sauce is one of the easiest sauces - feel free to make it with any other regular old pasta. This is also not a traditional garganelli sauce, but it's summer, it's what I had, and it's delicious.

Fresh Garden Tomato Sauce
Ingredients:
1 small bowls worth of super ripe, fresh tomatoes
1/4 cup good olive oil
1-2 tsp salt
2 cloves of garlic, minced

Optional
2 tbsp Pecorino or Parm
small handful of basil, ripped or chopped up
Pinch red pepper flakes
(you can also add some chopped mozzarella)

Directions:
Rip or chop up the tomatoes (I like the look of ripped) and add to a bowl. Add garlic, salt, olive oil, and, if you're using, pecorino, basil, red pepper flakes, and mozzarella. Let it sit for 1 hour up to several hours. Add more salt and pepper to taste.

Garganelli for two (double it for 4)
Ingredients:
1 cup flour
2 eggs
pinch of salt

Directions:
Put the flour and salt into the bowl of a Cuisinart. Pulse it a couple of times. Add the eggs and run until the dough starts to form a ball. Pull it out, knead it a couple of times just to bring it all together (and make sure it is elastic). Wrap it in plastic wrap and let is rest for 30 minutes.

To roll it out, divide the dough into 4 equal pieces and put out some cloths on your counters. Roll each piece of dough through the thickest setting on the pasta maker, then roll each through the next setting, and the next until you've gotten to the thinnest setting. (You can also do the next thinnest setting, but I like a nice, light pasta.)

Using a pizza or pastry cutter, cut the long noodles into squares.

Put the square at the bottom of the gnocchi board and put a dot of water on the top corner.

Wrap the bottom corner on the little rod and roll it tightly along the length of the board, applying pressure in order to get the nice grooves on the noodle. Slide it off and put it on the cloth. Repeat with all of them. Do not stack them! (I did and some of them got squished.)

If you're not making them right away, put a damp cloth on top of them until you're ready to cook them.

To cook, bring well salted water to a boil and cook for about 2 minutes, testing for texture. Toss with sauce.