Hand Cut Pasta with a Basil Cream Sauce

I love fresh, homemade pasta. It's seriously the best. I rarely make it, though, because it's always been such a chore and soooooo messy. Until now. I was watching The Chew, and one of the guest chefs demonstrated a super easy pasta recipe, so I vowed to try it out. 

You start with the following ingredients in your food processor:

• 4 eggs
• A "good" pinch of salt (a three-finger pinch, as opposed to a two-finger pinch)
• A small touch of EVOO

Pulse your food processor once or twice.

Then add 13 heaping (and I mean HEAPING) tablespoons of flour.

Run your food processor until it comes together.

Dump your dough out onto a floured surface and knead for a few minutes, incorporating more flour if needed (if your dough is "sticky" add more flour).

Cut your dough in half, and bust out your pasta roller attachment.

Starting at the widest setting on the slowest speed, start rolling your pasta through the pasta attachment. Work your way to thinner and thinner settings until your desired thickest is reached. I usually run the pasta through each setting 2-3 times before moving to the next thinner setting. I went to the #4 setting with my pasta. If you find your pasta is breaking or crumbling as you pass it through the pasta roller, dust the pasta sheet on both sides with flour before you roll it again. This will keep your pasta sheet smooth.

When you're done rolling,  dust the top side of your pasta sheet with flour, cut your sheet into two halves and roll each half up into tubes.

Then slice each tube.

And now you have pasta!!

To cook it, add the pasta to heavily salted, boiling water and cook for a couple of minutes (literally like 3 minutes or so....until your pasta floats).

From this point, you can do whatever you want with the pasta....like toss it with your favorite sauce.  I happened to have a king's ransom of basil in the house, so I opted to make a quick basil cream sauce.

I started with a 1/4 cup of onion, diced, and 4 cloves of garlic, minced.

I heated about 2 tablespoons of EVOO over medium heat, and added my onions and garlic.

I sauteed the onions and garlic for about 5 minutes, until they were softened and slightly golden.

I did not happen to have any white wine in my house (ah, the joys of pregnancy), but I did have some cream sherry, so I deglazed with 1/4 cup of cream sherry.

I let the sherry cook down a bit, and then added a TON of chopped basil. I mean, seriously, a lot. I know it doesn't look like much in the picture, but trust me, it's a massive pile of basil.

I added a cup and a half of heavy cream, and let the mixture simmer while I got my pasta started. I seasoned the sauce with salt and pepper.

Once my pasta was done, I added it to the cream sauce and tossed them together.

And then I added more basil. Mmm...

And now, it's time to eat!

By the way, I figured now was as good a time as any to share with you what goes on around my feet while I'm cooking. Yep, that's my dear doggy, cleaning up after me.