Instructions

1. Pre-heat your oven to 400 degrees F.
2. As it heats, stab the sweet potatoes a few times on each side to allow for steam to escape (and to avoid a giant exploding mess in your oven). Drizzle a little olive oil over the sweet potatoes, be sure to rub all over and then season with coarse salt and fresh cracked black pepper. Wrap in foil, place on a baking sheet to catch any drips and bake in the oven for 35 - 45 minutes or until cooked through and soft. Remove from the oven, set aside to cool to touch.
3. When you can grab them without too much burning on your little hands, scoop flesh into a food processor, puree until smooth. Set aside; Discard skins to the compost.
4. Now make the pasta! Dump 1 1/2 lbs of flour and fine sea salt on the counter. Starting from the peak, take your fingers and make a well in the center, gently pushing the flour out as your hand moves in careful circles. You want to make sure you have walls all the way around.
5. Crack your eggs in the center of the well – this is fun! And dump in up to 1 C of the cooled, pureed sweet potatoes.
6. Now, gently and patiently mix little bits of flour into the eggs until all the flour is incorporated. Use your hands.
7. Once all the flour is incorporated, knead the dough. Kneading is very easy and a great arm workout! Pretty much bang, massage, flip and rotate the dough until it has the consistency of play-dough all over. If it’s drier than that, add a little bit of water. If it’s too wet (and it likely could be depending on your altitude and sweet potatoes) add a little bit more flour, 1/4 a cup at a time until you can knead without it sticking to your hands all over the place. Only add as much as is necessary though so your pasta isn't too wet or too dry. As soon as it reminds you of play-dough – smooth, elastic, firm – cut into four to eight equal sized pieces, wrap well in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 30-60 minutes.
8. Remove dough from fridge, 1 piece at a time. Unwrap and run it through your pasta maker at the most open setting (mine is 1). Fold it in half and then again put through the machine. Repeat 6-8 times until you have a rather rectangular looking piece of dough. Flip to the next setting (2). Put through the machine. Now move to 3, then 4, etc… Until it's of the desired thickness. For this particular pasta - linguine - I went up to 6.
9. Separate and hang from a drying rack until ready to cook.
10. To cook: Bring a large pot of water to a boil over high heat. Salt well (it should taste like sea water). Dump in the pasta, stir, cook for 3-4 minutes or until el dente. Drain and serve with sauce of your choice – i.e. Keep it veggie friendly with Saucy Tomato Sauce topped with a good helping of finely grated Parmesan, or use brown butter, a cream sauce, meat ragù or whatever else tickles your fancy!

Eat.