I started coming down with something yesterday, and today I awoke to a full-blown flu, right down to achy skin. I’m pretty useless (so useless I had toast for lunch, but for the record, it was really good toast) so today I’m going to treat you to a photo essay of sorts.

I made this ravioli about two years ago and found the images on a back-up hard drive recently. Unfortunately I didn’t seem to write down a recipe, but here are the steps in photos with as much commentary as I can squeeze out of my flu-addled brain.

Here we have 100% durum semolina flour. It’s mixed with some salt and has some olive oil in the well.

Slowly work the water into the dough with your fingers.

Knead for a few minutes, but don’t stress about it. It won’t be pretty yet.

Cover loosely with oiled saran wrap, then cover that with an inverted bowl to rest.

The dough should be smooth and elastic after the second kneading.

Cut the dough in chunks and dust with flour, this will help you roll it out.

You can certainly do this step by hand, but a pasta machine makes it fun and easy. Start with the largest setting.

Gradually decrease the width between the rollers to thin out the dough. When the dough becomes too long to work with, fold it in thirds to shorten it and continue rolling until it reaches the desired thickness.

I used six types of mushrooms in this ravioli. Clicking on the photo will tell you what’s what.

Finely chopped in a food processor, this became the base for my filling.

Here I have two sheets of pasta side-by-side. I used my ravioli cutter (it looks like a cookie cutter with a wooden handle) to lightly mark the dough so I could see where to place the filling.

Gently place the second sheet of dough on top of the filling, being careful not to rip it.

Center the filling in your cutter and press down on the dough to make individual raviolis.

Remove the excess dough, flour the ravioli, and let sit out to dry for a few minutes.

Boil until they float in the water. Remove them gently with a slotted spoon and serve.