I dare you!

Peter and I were sitting around the other day talking about food.  I do not know why, but we were.  We might have been hungry.  We talk about food a lot when we're famished.  Our conversation went something like this:

P:  Have you ever made tortellini?
S:  From scratch?  No. 
P:  No, I meant from a package purchased at the store.  No one makes it from scratch.

Of course I took that as a personal challenge.  He might as well have said:  "Bet you can't do it.  I dare you to try!"

Naturally, I tried.

The recipe I found included beautiful pictures of the steps I should take.  The picture of the dough the recipe provided showed a beautiful glossy ball.  It was smooth and round and perfect.  My dough looked nothing like the picture. There was nothing glossy, smooth or round about it.

Very discouraged, I pondered tossing it out and starting over.  I had used duck eggs instead of chicken eggs and wondered if that were the problem.  If it was - I was stuck because that's all we have in the house.  I decided to press on.  Miraculously, after a lot more kneading, a lot of rolling and  a bit of work, I ended up with these things that look remarkably like they are supposed to:

They were filled with three kinds of cheese.  The sauce was a reduction of sauteed mushrooms, garlic, leeks, butter and wine.

It was good.  I proved I could do it.  It wasn't really that hard.  I just hope Peter doesn't catch on that daring me to do something or telling me it can't be done is a challenge I can't resist.