Muy Bueno!

Who doesn’t love fresh pasta? This week I channelled my inner Italian and became a pasta-making queen.  This week’s menu included homemade ravioli. I have made fresh pasta before but never a delicious pocket filled pasta. So I started with making the insides of my ravioli using swiss chard, onion and parmesan cheese.  I sauteed the  onions and swiss chard and let them cool as I started making my pasta.

Pasta dough, much like any other dough is quite simple to make. It only takes a couple of ingredients and a lot of love…kneading. I kneaded until my arm was sore,  then let the dough sit for half of an hour. I got the recipe offline from the Food & Wine website (a fantastic magazine resource for food lovers).  I purchased a pasta sheeter a couple of years ago and today I put it to good use.Looking like an old Italian lady with flour everywhere, in my hair,  on my face and all over the kitchen, I slowly and surely rolled the dough thinner.  In the future I plan on getting technology to help me out; Ill be buying a Kitchenaid  mixer that comes with a pasta sheeter attachment.

Pasta sheeter hard at work.

Fill, fill, fill it up.

Its ready when floating!

The most difficult part about ravioli is putting the filling in the dough and having to seal it with an egg wash, pinch it together with hands or fork and hope that all your hard work isn't destroyed the minute you drop it in boiling water. If not sealed properly your ravioli will leak and get filled with water which doesn't make for a tasty piece of ravioli. 

One of the best things about homemade pasta is that it cooks in only a couple of minutes. You know when your dough is done because it floats to the top of the boiling water. The ravioli was tossed with our homemade tomato sauce that my Mom and I made this past summer.  I also paired it with my homemade vegan caesar salad dressing. The raw (local) garlic will ward off any kind of cold this time of year.

Memories of summer, tomato sauce.

After my pasta making escapade,I’m going to relax and indulge in a glass of vino.