Even MORE adventures in homemade pasta

Tonight's Menu

• homemade cheese ravioli
  
• green salad "bar"
  

I will be honest with you: I don't know that I'll be making homemade ravioli all that often in the future. It's not that it was difficult at all, but OMG, it was SO TIME-CONSUMING. I'm not sure the results were worth all the time that went into this dish. I mean, the ravioli was really good, but I don't know that it was two hours worth of good, you know?

ANYWAY, what I did was mix up a batch of pasta dough (two cups flour, one teaspoon salt, three eggs, whizz it all up in a food processor then wrap it in plastic and stick it in the fridge) and roll it out into sheets. That part was easy.

For the filling, I combined some whole-milk ricotta (if yours is runny or weepy, drain it first) with some shredded parmesan (NOT the stuff in the green can), chopped fresh parsley, salt and pepper. Also easy.

Then, I think I may have done something stupid. I'm pretty sure most people who are crazy enough to make ravioli at home dollop the filling onto the pasta sheets and then lay another sheet on top, sealing everything around the dollops of filling and then cutting the raviolis apart. But I'm such a doof, I wasn't sure I'd be able to get everything spaced out right. So I cut my pasta sheets into squares and made my raviolis one at a time and OH MY GOD, never again. It just took FOREVER, and they were kind of jacked-up looking. Maybe I just need practice.

But whatever, I boiled them in salted water for about five minutes and served them with my usual tomato sauce and they were fine. Really good, even! But holy cats, y'all. My back is killing me from all that ravioli assembly.

The salad bar was just romaine lettuce, sliced cucumbers, and sliced carrots from the garden.

More adventures in pasta

Tonight's Menu

• homemade spaghetti w/quick meatless tomato sauce
  
• green salad "bar"
  

I am determined to get this homemade pasta thing right, y'all. After posting about my most recent attempt at it on my other blog, some kind readers offered tips and I incorporated those this time around with very satisfactory results!

I used the same recipe as last time (two cups flour, one teaspoon salt, three eggs -- is it weird that I have that memorized now?) but after rolling the dough through on a couple of different settings, I folded it in thirds and went back to a larger setting and rolled it through again before repeating the process a couple of times. This time I was able to get it to a #6 thickness before chickening out. My crappy pasta maker has a built-in cutter for spaghetti so I tried it and it worked! I tossed the strands with a bit of flour, then hung them on a kitchen towel over the back of a chair to dry for a couple of hours. They cooked up in about three minutes and were really, really good! Yay! Success!

The tomato sauce was my usual. And actually, it was left over from some purchased tortellini I made several days ago. It keeps well in the fridge.

Tonight's salad bar was chopped romaine and green leaf lettuces, sliced green onions, sliced carrots from the garden, and some tiny cherry tomatoes (I caved and bought some at the store, which I would not normally do this time of year, but I NEEDED tomatoes, y'all).

I am SO excited about this whole pasta thing, can you tell? If I ever get brave enough for homemade tortellini or ravioli, you all will be the first to know.

Yummy delicious CARBS

Tonight's Menu

• spaghetti marinara
  
• leftover green salad with lettuce FROM THE GARDEN!
  

DH has been shunning carbs (except potatoes, for which he has a weakness) for quite a while now, and when I told the kids that he was working late tonight and therefore we'd be having spaghetti, you would have thought I'd told them we were having ice cream for dinner. They were SO EXCITED. I think the boy ate a couple of pounds of spaghetti all on his own.

I've been told that my marinara sauce is not TECHNICALLY an actual marinara, but the degree to which I DO NOT CARE cannot be adequately expressed. It's a vegetarian tomato sauce, a'ight? I don't know from marinara.

Here's how I make it: take a can of Del Monte diced tomatoes with onion and garlic and combine it with a small can of tomato paste. If you don't like a chunky sauce, you can do this in a blender. Otherwise just stir them together in a saucepan. Stir in a little water; the sauce will thin just a bit during the cooking process so use your judgment here. Stir in 4-6 Tbs. of sugar, depending on how sweet you like your sauce. Add some dried oregano and basil; again, however much you want. Bring it to a boil, then cover and reduce the heat. Simmer for as long as it takes the pasta to cook.

There's a story behind this recipe but I've had a couple of sidecars (they go GREAT with Italian food, by the way) and can't be arsed to tell it right now.

Day 14

Adult Menu

• four-cheese ravioli with marinara sauce
  
• a big green salad w/cucumbers and carrots
  

Girl Child
Doesn't like cheese ravioli all of a sudden (even though she loves cheese tortellini, which is the EXACT SAME THING but a different shape) so she had a peanut butter sandwich. She also had some salad and some shredded parmesan cheese.

Boy Child
LOVES cheese ravioli and had three helpings (no marinara) plus some salad.

I keep frozen cheese ravioli and/or tortellini on hand for days when I don't feel much like cooking. This was one of those days. I could whip up the marinara in my sleep, I've been making it so long, and the salad was super easy to toss together (I buy a pre-bagged mixture of greens and toss in baby carrots from yet ANOTHER bag, so all I have to do is cut up the cucumber).