Pasta!

In the last two weeks I have made pasta three times - once rolled out by hand and twice with a hand cranked pasta machine.

I had NO IDEA how easy it is to do, and now I think I am addicted!

I used Jamie Oliver's recipe from his Naked Chef cookbook which has well written and easy to follow directions that are accompanied by great illustrative photos.

After trying it by hand and succeeding, I decided to be bold and make roasted squash ravioli for my book club!

First, I roasted the squash, skin and all, the night before, making sure it got caramelized.











Then, I whizzed it up with our immersion blender and added freshly ground nutmeg to taste, about a third of a cup of freshly grated Parmesan and an egg and put the whole mixture into a smallish ziplock bag in the fridge.




With the filling done, I set out to roll the pasta dough into thin sheets for the ravioli. This proved to take more time than skill.

The process involves repeatedly putting the dough through the pasta machine, folding it onto itself and then running it through again at a the next smaller setting.


My dough was initially a little wet, so I kept adding flour dusting to it each time I ran it through resulting in more elastic dough. I also cut the pasta into smaller strips as I got to the smaller settings so that the dough was easily manageable. As I got to the desired thickness I placed the finished pieces on cookie sheets that had wax paper on them and sprinkled semolina flour on each layer so the dough did not stick.

Once all of the dough was rolled out I placed the pieces of dough on the counter, used a brush to give it an egg wash, and then piped a small quarter-sized portion of the squash filling onto the dough. Then I folded the dough over itself and sealed the contents in by lightly pinching the dough together and removing any air pockets when possible.

This is the most important step since an improperly sealed ravioli is likely to come undone while cooking.

By the time the gals arrived for book club I have made the ravioli, but still needed to boil them for about a minute and a half and then coat them in melted butter and sage. Lucky for me, my guests are long-time friends and game for waiting a bit for the finished product.

I served the ravioli in batches, so it wasn't long until everyone had a batch of three followed another three.











I did miss the final step, a dusting of Parmesan, which would have rounded out the flavor.

Oh well, not bad for a first go of it!







I had left over pasta dough, so Mark brought home some ragu sauce from Tails & Trotters for Sunday night's dinner. Yum!