Boozy Mushrooms and Fresh Pasta

I bought myself a pasta machine. I've made fresh pasta once before, using a rolling pin and a pizza cutter, and didn't make it thin enough. Now I can make it extremely thin, and I can't wait to make a truly homemade lasagna.

The dough recipe I used this time comes from How to Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman, which is a great compendium of all sorts of useful information. Its basically the same as the previous recipe, but I used fresh thyme and his food processor option to make it even easier: Put 2 cups flour, 1 tablespoon minced thyme, and a teaspoon of salt in a food processor and pulse to combine. Add 3 eggs and process until a ball begins to form. Add some water or flour, if your dough is too dry or too wet. Sprinkle with flour, cover with plastic, and let rest 30 minutes. Then roll, roll, roll, and cut with the pasta machine.

The rolling was a very cool process. You start on the largest setting and run a chunk of dough through, twice on each setting and sprinkling with flour if its sticky, until you get to the smallest (only once then). A few things I learned: Use a small chunk of dough, because it will get very long in the thinner stages, and difficult to deal with if you're doing this by yourself. And the thinnest setting, 9 on my machine, was too thin for me. The noodles came out soggy even after less than two minutes of cooking the first time. The second time I stopped at 7 or 8 and was much happier with the result.

Once you have your dough to the thickness you want, run it through the cutters, et voila! Fresh pasta. My machine has tagliatelle and angel hair, and you can use the uncut sheets for lasagna. You can then let it dry and store it, or cook it right away in boiling salted water.

I topped mine with Jaden of Steamy Kitchen's Whiskey Mushroom Cream Sauce. And oh my goodness, is this ever good! She uses it atop a steak (and manages to take a mouthwatering picture of it to boot!). I used regular button mushrooms and a ton more garlic, 'cause that's how I roll. This stuff is magic, and it is imperative that you go make this and pour it over whatever you want. Just get it in your pie-hole pronto! And go on over and say hi to Jaden while you're at it; she has a fantastic blog.

Related recipes:
Wine Sauteed Mushrooms
Stuffed Mushrooms