Recently, I have had success with my homemade pastas. Some of the more creative ventures involved adding flavors, using porcini powder or unsweetened cocoa to the flour mixture. Here is a short story of the second time I tried the porcini pasta, this version with some of my favorite summer vegetables.

I made two different doughs for small quantities of finished product. One was a simple mix with 75 g. of Double-Zero “00” flour, 17 g. of freshly-milled Durum wheat, and one extra large egg. I let it dry and saved it for a dinner on another day.

For the second batch, I made Porcini Tonarelli, with 88g. of “00” flour, 37 g. of hard Durum flour. 1 extra large whole egg plus one egg yolk, and the magical ingredient — only 5 g. of Porcini powder.

I had already prepared the sauce, containing sautéed eggplant, zucchini, leeks, and tomato, PLUS a few high-quality dried Porcini — reconstituted, chopped and sautéed, including the strained soaking liquid. The dish was delicious, accompanied by a salad of beets with pickled cauliflower and Kalamata olives.

All of this was topped off with one of my favorite Italian white wines, a single-vineyard NovaSerra Greco di Tufo from Mastroberardino.

Buon appetito.