Thanks to LindaC's & AnnT's recommendations I bought a food processor for making dough and used it successfully for a couple of years before getting a bread machine. I basically did what Linda outlined. Flour, yeast, etc. in the bowl and adding liquid slowly through the feed tube. Once it sort of came together (after about 15 pulses), I'd let it rest for about 10 minutes so the liquid could get fully absorbed. Then I'd finish off with another 15 pulses while checking the texture. If needed, I'd add more flour or liquid. Then plop the dough into a container for rising. I always used my metal blade and never used recipes with more than 3-1/2 to 4 cups of flour total. I think the FP is a great help when making a smaller amount of bread. I also use it for cutting in butter for scones & biscuits, but, like AnnT, I add the liquid by hand. I found a pretty good book in my local library about using a FP to prepare breads. It has good general techniques. Maybe you could find it too. The title is "The best bread ever: great homemade bread using your food processor" by Charles Van Over; Broadway Books, Publication date:1997.

Thanks Colleen. When I did it, the egg leaked out of the well and ran down the sides of my portable dishwasher onto the floor. I thought, "What a mess... it's all going to get mixed up anyway. Why don't I just use a bowl?" I just watched a Three's Company episode where Jack was showing someone how to make pasta and he said to make a well as well. I guess I won't have the same problem again since I'll mix/knead in the FP next time. The leftovers are good... I added some chicken today. Hope it freezes as well as it reheats.

The wheat family saga, and why all-purpose flour isn't the "right" flour for all-purposes..... REALLY, it's NOT! The following is in part from classes I teach on grains and home milling. -Grainlady ***The bottom line....you can make pasta and noodles with any kind of flour (including non-wheat varieties, low-gluten, and gluten-free varieties, bean flours, etc., but not all wheat flours are the optimum choice for making pasta and noodles. There are 6 wheat varieties (both red wheat and white wheat, hard and soft, as well as spring and winter wheat). Each variety has different characteristics when considering the type of food you want to make. There are varieties that have bread-making characteristics - "strong" wheat, or hard wheat. Wheat with a high protein (gluten) content. (t. aestivum) There are wheat varieties that have characteristics best used when you don't want/need a lot of gluten formation - "weak" wheat, or soft wheat. (t. aestivum, t. compactum) As a quick note, up until the 1880's, the only type of wheat that was readily available in the U.S. for making flour was soft wheat. Bread making was a completely different process than what we use today because of the type of wheat grown throughout the United States. There weren't tall lofty loaves like we get today. If you can find some of the heritage wheat varieties, they are also best used with the long, slow, bread making processes from the early 1800's. What about "gluten"? The protein group we refer to as "gluten" is predominantly glutenins and gliadins. For both hard and soft wheat the dominant protein is glutenin. All-purpose flour is a mixture of hard and soft wheat, making it strong enough to make yeast bread, weak enough for most cakes, cookies, quick breads, pastry, but it's not the optimal choice for anything, except maybe soft dinner rolls. Cake flour is milled from soft wheat. Enter the 6th variety of wheat - durum (t. durum) - the best choice for pasta and noodles. Durum wheat came to the United States from south Russia in the late 19th century, as did the hard red winter wheat varieties that are the granddaddy to today's bread flour. Durum represents only 5% of the wheat crop in the U.S. It is the hardest of all U.S. wheats with a high protein content, but unlike hard wheat (which also has a high protein content), the dominant protein of the protein group in durum wheat is gliadin, which makes it the best wheat variety for pasta and noodles. Durum comes in three subclasses which are according to the color. Hard amber durum, amber durum, and durum. Hard amber durum contains sufficient glutenins to make good bread and produce tall, slightly yellow loaves. Another characteristic of bread made with hard amber durum, the baked loaves keep better. Durum flour also improves the texture of bread made with hard wheat flour. As an aside, I've never been able to find/purchase hard amber durum, just amber durum and durum wheat, and I milled my own flour for pasta and noodles from durum wheat. "Durum - from the Latin word for hard - is an appropriate name for the firmest of all wheats. Durum's hardness makes it the wheat of choice for producing pasta. When most wheats are milled, the endosperm, or heart of the wheat kernel, breaks down into a fine, powdery flour, but the endosperm of durum is hard enough to hold together. The result is a granular product called semolina. Durum kernels are amber-colored and larger than those of other wheat classes. Also unique to durum is the fact that its endosperm is not creamy white, but yellow, which gives pasta its pleasing yellow hue." The better the durum, the better the pasta. When regular wheat flour is mixed with durum flour for making pasta, it's considered an inferior product in the industry. You can mill durum fine to coarse. Semolina is milled from the endosperm of durum wheat (the bran and germ are removed), while whole wheat pasta is milled from whole durum grain with the bran and germ, as well as the endosperm. When making pasta (for extruding), use a coarse grind. When making noodles (flat and cut), choose a fine grind. The ancient version of durum wheat is Kamut, and it is also a good choice for making pasta and noodles. -Grainlady

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.