Fresh Pasta

Ingredients

• 3 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• 4 extra extra large eggs

Preparation

1. Mound the flour in the center of your counter.  Make a well in the middle of the flour and add the eggs.  Using your hands, beat together the eggs and begin to incorporate the flour starting with the inner rim of the well.  As you incorporate the eggs, keep pushing the flour up to retain the well shape (do not worry if it looks messy).  The dough will come together in a shaggy mass when about half of the flour is incorporated.
2. Start kneading the dough with both hands.  Add more flour if the dough is too sticky.  Once the dough is a cohesive mass, remove dough from the board and wrap in plastic wrap.  Set aside for 20 minutes at room temperature.
3. Cut the dough into 8 pieces.  One at a time, feed each piece into your pasta maker on the largest setting.  Do this 6-8 times, folding in half once each time, for all 8 pieces.  The dough may seem dry/holey/tough at first, but it will soften up as you feed through the pasta maker.
4. With each piece, feed through the pasta maker on incrementally smaller settings until you have reached the smallest.
5. Choose the cut that you want and feed each sheet of pasta through the cutter.
6. Hang on a drying rack for at least 30 minutes.
7. Boil in water for 3-4 minutes.  Drain.
8. Add to whatever pasta sauce you like.

Notes:

1. We doubled the recipe to have pasta left to freeze for future use.
2. We also didn't have extra large eggs, so for each single recipe added an additional large egg.

Strawberry Shortcake

Ingredients

Biscuits:

• 4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tbsp salt
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 1 cup vegetable shortening (I only had butter, so I used that)
• 1 1/2 - 2 cups buttermilk, plus additional for brushing

Filling:

• 2 lbs fresh strawberries, hulled and sliced
• sugar or splenda to taste (I just sprinkled a little bit over the cut strawberries and stirred it in) 

 Topping:

• 1 cup heavy whipping cream
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tbsp granulated white sugar 

 Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F
2. Mix flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda in your stand mixer (or bowl if you don't have one).  Cut the chilled butter into small squares and add to the mixer.  Mix until resembles coarse crumbs (if not using mixer, cut with pastry cutter, forks, or break up with hands).
3. Add buttermilk slowly until the dough starts to come together.  It will be sticky and not entirely mixed together.  I ended up only using 1 1/2 cups.  Finish the mixing process with your hands until it comes together as a dough.
4. Break off chunks of dough into the size biscuit you want (or roll out and use a cookie cutter if you have one).  This made 6 large biscuits for us.  Place on ungreased cookie sheet.
5. Brush the tops with buttermilk and sprinkle with granulated sugar.
6. Bake for 20-25 minutes until risen and golden brown.
7. Meanwhile, wash and slice strawberries.  Add sugar/splenda to bowl.  Let set until ready to use.
8. When ready to eat, add whipping cream, vanilla extract, and sugar to stand mixer.  Beat the mixture until stiff peaks form.
9. Cut the biscuits in half.  Layer strawberries and cream on bottom half.  Place the top half on that and layer again.
10. ENJOY!!!!

 Notes:

1. The first time I made strawberry shortcake, I used a scone recipe, which was made with light cream instead of buttermilk.  While at the grocery store today, I tried to remember the recipe off the top of my head and bought buttermilk instead, so I improvised with buttermilk biscuits instead of scones.
2. I freaked out initially after I already had the biscuits formed and on the cookie sheet when I realized I hadn't added any sugar (which the scone recipe had).  I thought I forgot something, but realized this recipe didn't call for any.  B was initially worried it wouldn't work as a dessert, but with the sweetened whipped cream and strawberries, it turned out great.