Fresh Pumpkin Pasta

As soon as it turned October I bought not one but two pumpkins. I had high hopes of making something edible with them. Truth be told only one remains because I lost one to mold.  I'm not really sure what I thought I was going to make with them. Growing up we didn't carve pumpkins - we painted them. In hindsight this was probably a very strategic move for my mother, the mother of some very accident prone children, specifically twins - my sister & I.  Maybe that's why I feel bad about cutting up pumpkins & would rather them rot than be destroyed. It's silly I know but that's why they have canned pumpkin. I have no problem peeling open a can & making recipes with pumpkin that's been neatly stored in a  little can just for me.

That being said, the day I bought the pumpkins, I also bought a can of pumpkin home with me too.  Rather than making the traditional sweet pumpkin pie, I opted to add my canned pumpkin to my go-to pasta recipe. I basically just swapped out half the eggs for the pumpkin.  The result was a vibrant tender pasta with a subtle hint of pumpkin.

Ingredients:

• 2 eggs
• 1/3 cup canned pumpkin
• 3 3/4 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3-4 tablespoons of water

Make it!

1. Mix eggs, pumpkin, flour and salt together.
2. Add enough water to make the dough start to stick together but not too wet. I actually think it works better if it's a bit on the drier more crumbly side. If you add to much water, no worries, just add more flour.
3. Knead the dough together so that it forms a rough ball shape. Let the dough rest for about 30 minutes.
4. Tear small pieces of dough off and roll it between your hands or on a cutting board to form a pasta worm.  Run it between the flat plates of your pasta attachment starting with the smallest number (setting 1 or 2). Run it through several times on settings 2, 4, 6 and 7 until you reach desired thickness.
5. Hang your pasta sheet a pasta rack. Work through the rest of your dough until it is all flat sheets of pasta.
6. Change the attachment to the fettucini or spaghetti attachment and run flat sheets of pasta through this - one time only.
7. Hang pasta to dry or if you don't have a rack toss the fresh strips with plenty of flour so it doesn't stick together.