We searched various websites for recipes for fresh pasta. We found some at Smitten Kitchen and another website. Mai and Midori kind of meshed the two recipes together to make our pasta.
{Pasta volcano!}
{Kneading the dough}
We decided on making three kinds of fillings: mushrooms with Parmesan, shallots and garlic with arugula, and dates, bacon and blue cheese.
{Frying the bacon}
{Devils on Horseback, ravioli style}
{Arugula, shallots and garlic}
{Slicing the ravioli}
{Ooooh! My first ravioli!}
{Waiting for the ravioli to boil}
{Assorted, slightly more glutinous than desired, but still tasty, home made ravioli}
Gretchen made a fantastic summery dessert, a "raspberry crumble" for us! All from the bodega downstairs...
Home Made Ravioli, adopted from various sources
You should probably follow whatever recipe you find for fresh pasta dough. We mixed and matched some recipes and our dough came out a bit too chewy, though not bad for our first attempt. The recipe from Smitten Kitchen seemed to be the best bet to follow. If you don't have a pasta press, you can use a rolling pin to get the dough as thin as possible.
Mushroom and Parmesan Filling, a Hom Nom Original Recipe!
I wish I could tell you how many people this would serve - but I wasn't really counting. We made 3 fillings for all of our raviolis and all us 5 girls were full at the end of the night.
Ingredients
- 1/4 pound of your favorite mushrooms - I chose crimini
- 1/3 cup or more to your taste of freshly grated Parmesan cheese
- 1/4 cup of bread crumbs
- Salt to taste
Wash and finely dice your mushrooms and put into a medium sized bowl. Using a microplane or other cheese grater, finely grate the Parmesan over the mushrooms into the bowl. Add the breadcrumb and salt, and mix with a fork.
The only thing I would potentially do differently is saute the diced mushrooms in olive oil or mix with truffle oil before mixing it with everything else. I think that would really add to the flavor. I found that I liked the taste better when it was more Parmesan heavy than mushroom heavy, and maybe this would change if I had sauteed the mushrooms before hand!
Devils on Horseback Filling, also a Hom Nom original!
Ingredients
- Half of a carton of dates
- 4 strips of bacon (I used hickory smoked)
- 1/4 cup or less of your favorite blue cheese. I used something from Wisconsin, but you can use Stilton or Gorgonzola too
Fry 4 strips of bacon and let them cool slightly. Dice your dates as finely as you can - yes - this will get very sticky! Hence why I did not do it in a food processor and just a medium sized bowl.
Once your bacon strips are cool, dice them finely and mix them together with the dates. Crumble in your blue cheese. I was afraid it would taste too blue cheesey, so I crumbled in about 3 tablespoons worth. I could have probably done a total of 1/4 cup.
Arugula Ravioli, recipe adapted from Smitten Kitchen
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 large shallots, finely chopped
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 8 ounces arugula, washed, dried, coarse stems removed and coaresly chopped* (we used only 4 ounces)
- 3 tablespoons breadcrumbs
- 1/3 cup finely grated Romano or Parmesan Cheese
- Salt and Pepper to taste
Heat olive oil in a pan, and saute the shallots and garlic. Add the arugula and saute for another 3-5 minutes. Let the mixture cool down and then add the bread crumbs and cheese. Season as needed with salt and pepper.
Ravioli
This is the easy part. First, add salt to your pot and boil the water.
Slice your thinly rolled out ravioli dough into squares that are roughly the same size. Place a spoon sized dollop of your filling of choice in the center, and then place the second piece of dough on top. To seal, press down on the sides firmly with a fork.
You will want to make sure to keep the prepared raviolis moist - so keep them covered with a damp towel while you are stuffing the rest of the ravioli.
Place your prepared ravioli into the pot. You don't want to over crowd the pot, so you might have to boil in multiple batches depending on the size of your pot. As a general rule - you want to make sure each ravioli has enough room to float around freely.
We boiled each batch for approximately 6-8 minutes - but Gretchen was using the color of the pasta as an indicator instead of the timer.
Out of all the fillings we made - the Devils on Horseback seemed to be the most favorite. Yay! Mai's arugula ravioli was also delicious, and my "safety choice" of mushrooms with Parmesan was well received, but I'd say the least flavorful of the three. Though, with cheesey carbs, you really can't go too wrong, right?
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