Thanks for the vote of confidence, but I am not an expert. It is really quite easy. We make the pasta the old fashioned way and use this CucinaPro and have had good luck. We use this for Marcato drying. Any number of sites can give you good proportions for egg/flour and how to put the dough through the pasta machine. This is a good start - Fine Cooking The lasagna is, without a doubt, so much better than dry noodles. Chicken noodle soup is divine. Flavored linguine is really easy to make.

We also use the Cucina to make thin dough for pizza and crackers. We stopped buying crackers after we learned how to make them.

Have fun.

I'm also interested in a pasta maker. Does anyone have experience with the Kitchen Aid mixer pasta maker attachment? I'm thinking it'd be a positive because it attaches to something I already own. Seems efficient.

I have the kitchen aid attachment
set and used it heavily for a couple of years. (Lately I've not had the time to play with it so often.) It runs very smoothly. I
can't compare it to any other pasta-making set up as it is the only one
I have owned. However, I've been happy with it and have successfully made pasta many times with no prior experience. Being able to have two hands free to guide the dough helped a lot, given my lack of skill.

Thanks everyone!! She doesn't have a KA and I don't see her getting one anytime soon-their kitchen is a quite small galley. I keep thinking that I should get that attachment for my KA mixer.

Thanks nightowl for the additional info; that recipe looks good. She is an excellent cook; this idea for a pasta maker actually came up in October as something for my grandson's birthday. I thought I might get one as a present for both of them.

If anyone else has any personal experiences, chime in. Otherwise, thanks again to all who responded.

I love my old-style hand crank pasta roller/cutter. They're cheap and easy to use once you get the hang of it. In my old kitchen I clamped it on a countertop with a standard overhang, and it wasn't very stable while cranking. Now I use it on the backside of my island with a generous overhang, and I have no problems clamping it securely. DD (age 9) and I have a lot of fun making noodles together!

I think it's a lovely idea. Not unlike ice cream making, pasta making is one of those things no one needs to do, but it's such a fun activity.

I can just barely remember my mom making pasta when I was four; and other kitchen projects. It is probably why I enjoy cooking as an adult. So many good associations....

Like Nightowl, I also use the CucinaPro, and it works great. I do have a KA, but I don't see what the pasta attachment could do any better.

I don't have a drying rack, as I've only made pasta that gets cooked right away.

I had one (I forget the brand) If I remember correctly you would add the various ingredients to a hopper, and it would mix them into a dough, then you would change the setup and select a die to extrude the pasta.

I first used regular flour following a recipe they provided, and made a batch of fettuccine. It took maybe an hour of setup and work to get it to make enough pasta for four people. The pasta cooked quite fast, but it was bland, and flavorless and somewhat gluey. It then took about 1/2 hour to clean the machine.

I decided to give it another try with more expensive semolina pasta flour. It took about as long, the pasta produced was less prone to falling apart as it was being extruded, and was less gluey after being cooked, but it was still mostly bland, and flavorless. Not quite as good as cheap, "fresh" refrigerated pasta and vastly more work.

After that it sat unused in the cabinet for years, until a guest expressed a mild interest in it, and I sent it home with them.

I'm no expert, but that sounds like the worst possible way to make pasta, bob_cville.

I called our local kitchen store and they have a CucinaPro in stock so I can go look at it in the flesh! Thanks so much for the personal recommendations. I have a lot of friends who cook from scratch, but I don't know anyone with a pasta machine, so this has been really helpful.

I hope you'll let us know what you think of it. I have been considering getting the attachment for my KA but, wow, the price! I make noodles fairly often but I just make the flat kind, rolled out with a pastry roller, and cut in strips with a pizza cutter. I would love to make different kinds.

Speaking of pricey KA attachments, when and where are the best deals on them? Call me silly, but I just saw a commercial for their spiralizer and it looks completely frivolous and fun!

Leela4, I have had an Atlas/Marcato pasta machine with the motor attachment for many years. I used to do wedding cakes, and I bought the pasta machine for fondant and gumpaste. There was much talk in the cake community back then on which machine was the best and the Atlas/Marcato was the one to buy. Fast forward about 10 years and I'm retired from cakes, except for my grandsons. After a visit to Italy and lunch at a friend's home in Rome where she cooked for us, I came home and made my own pasta, per her instructions, and started using the Atlas for pasta. I don't know how it would work with just the crank handle, but with the motor it works wonderfully. My first time I thought you had to keep all the noodles separated as they extruded, but I found that even when they're all bunched up together, when you put them in the water, they separate and come out nicely. The Atlas dials from 1 to 10 to adjust the thinness of the pasta (or fondant). I take my pasta down to a 10 - it swells when you cook it. This is the Atlas with Motor. This is the Atlas without motor. Apparently it comes in colors now - cool! Mine is stainless.

Thank you all again for taking the time to comment on this.

funky-I will definitely comment on the outcome of my search, although I guess I won't know how they like whatever I choose until after Christmas.

Debbi-thanks for weighing in on the Atlas with the motor. That was the one I was leaning towards from the research I had done before starting this thread.

I'm hoping to go look at the CucinaPro tomorrow. We had a humongous windstorm here (eastern WA) Tuesday night and many places are still without power so I'm hoping they'll be able to open.

I recently purchased this machine too, based on the pictures. They have some at Marshalls/TJMaxx/Home Goods, in time for the holidays.

@funkycamper @Errant_gw.

I work at well-known national kitchen store. We are having a special right now on selected electrics. KA should be included.