When we first arrived five years ago, we found giant puffballs along our driveway. No such luck this year, but Zeke sniffed out a Purple Spored Puffball on August 24th.

Puffballs like sandy soil…just what we have along roadsides!

We have been gathering them ever since.

Cleaned and ready for processing. Not as readily edible as potato chips. Then again, I wouldn’t eat potato chips I found on the roadside.

Puffballs lack a pleasant texture. They are mighty like savory marshmallows.

Into the dehydrator they go! Dried, they can be pulverized to hide their texture and release their incredible mushroom flavor.

We have made “mushroom soup” from the dried slices by rehydrating the slices in broth and placing them in a blender, but we usually then have to use them in wild rice or risotto as they still suffer from texture problems. Michael came up with the idea of blenderizing them dry and using them to make pasta.

I researched pasta recipes and settled on 10 ounces of flour, 2 ounces of puffball powder, a teaspoon salt and four duck eggs.

Kneading until it feels wonderfully springy and doesn’t tear. Working on the dining room table let me use my upper body weight to manhandle the dough.

We do have a pasta machine. We invested after rolling and cutting noodles by hand.

Michael turned the crank while I fed the dough through the rollers.

We chose a fettuccine width and one click less than the thinnest noodle setting.

We cleaned a space in the addition to dry noodles.

We figured out width and depth settings by trying different settings and then boiling small batches.

With just a trace of olive oil, the puffballs made pasta worth eating. Yum! Michael has gone from a puffball skeptic to looking forward to having them as a regular resource.

Working together (rolling pasta works so much better with extra hands), thinking of unusual uses (we found NO recipes online for mushroom powder noodles), and enjoying the results of our labor simply eggs us on (pun intended) to new heights of gustatory adventures.

We will leave the table dancing to the Grand Girl.