Home-made Ravioli

I need to start taking pictures of what I make - sorry, no images. 

This weekend we were again inundated with snow.  So on a lazy weekend what does one do?  Cook.  On Saturday I made a killer Shepherds Pie with ground turkey (and cleaned my son's room - but that's on my other blog), and on Sunday I baked bread and made raviolis (and cleaned out the cupboard in our bathroom - but that's yet another blog without "before" photos). 

I've never made ravioli before (or Shepherds Pie, for that matter).  Eaten it ... yes, but never made it.  So I thought I'd try.  I have a pasta maker and make linguine on a fairly regular basis.  Once you eat home-made pasta it's a huge disappointment to go back to bought (as it is with most home-made food).  And the ravioli was no exception.

I didn't have a recipe per se.  I looked up a couple online and was going to go with a pumpkin and feta filling.  But I took some cooked chicken out of the freezer, too.  Well the pumpkin wasn't thawed when I started so I got some leftover feta out of the fridge, put it in the food processor with chicken, cheese curds, basil, parsley and some zucchini and blended it all up.  When I was done with that, I tasted it.  And it was good.  So I stopped there.  If it ain't broke ... don't fix it.

Then I made the pasta, cut it into 2-inch circles with a cookie cutter and filled them.  Filling means putting a little of the filling on the bottom round, wetting the edges well, and putting a second pasta round on top - then pinching the edges to seal.  I was afraid that the edges wouldn't seal and that they would burst, but the bigger problem ended up being the thinness of the pasta - it can burst in the middle if you're not careful.  After losing a couple I had it down.  After they are made, I just put them on parchment paper on a tray and let them sit.  Would have been better to freeze them - a couple stuck even to the parchment paper.  Froze a bunch for later use, and none of them stuck or tore from it.

Anyhow, ate it with a bought sauce, and man were they good.  I'd encourage anyone with the inclination and the time to make your own pasta.  It tastes so much better.  I think I paid $60 for the pasta maker at the Italian Market and I haven't regretted it for a second.

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