Ravioli

I’ve wanted to make ravioli for a long time. There are different kinds of ravioli makers, from attachments that fit on pasta rolling machines to trays like this:But last year I bought two hand-stamp ravioli cutters, one larger and square, and one small and round. They cost less than $2 apiece. Until now I hadn’t ever used them.

I’d made up a bunch of sausage and wanted to do something different with it. And there are still several butternut squash in the cellar. Finally, I dug around in the freezer and found a cup of homemade ricotta.

After roasting up the butternut squash, I pureed it in the food processor and combined one cup of the puree, the cup of ricotta, and a cup of the sausage (already browned) along with salt and pepper to taste. Yummy.

I mixed up a batch of pasta dough. After it sat for twenty minutes under a wet towel, I rolled it through my pasta maker going all the way down to the #2 setting. Next time I think I’ll stop at #3 because the pasta was so thin and delicate that it was kind of hard to work with.

Still, it was simply a matter of laying out what was essentially a big noodle (about 5 inches by 9 inches), dropping teaspoons of filling far enough apart (I just eyeballed it), laying another big noodle over the top, and cutting out the ravioli with the hand presses.

I boiled them up and served them with the last jar of tomato sauce from the garden (happened to be from yellow tomatoes – so sweet!) heated with a frozen cube of chopped basil, a dollop of heavy cream, and a bit of freshly grated Parmesan.

Yum!

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ARC Giveaway Reminder

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I’m giving away two Advance Reader Copies of Brownies and Broomsticks, the first Magical Bakery Mystery I’ve written under the name Bailey Cates. To enter you need to do one of the following (or do more than one and you’ll be entered multiple times). 

• Follow or subscribe to The Lightfoot Chronicles
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The contest will run until end of day Saturday, February 25, and I’ll announce the winners on Hearth Cricket and The Lightfoot Chronicles on Monday, February 27.