Prior to yesterday, I had never made pasta from scratch. It simply wasn’t something I had ever been interested it. It always seemed like a lot of work for something that tasted perfectly fine that you could get already made in a box from the grocery store. But when I received a food challenge to make ravioli, I knew it was time to give pasta making a try.
My first attempt at the pasta dough ended up in the trash, but this was really due to the fact I was using a recipe that assumed I already knew how to make pasta and didn’t bother explaining literally any of the actual steps. In the end, I used the original recipe only for the ravioli filling. I used another recipe for making the dough, another for the sauce.
Was it a lot? Yes. Especially when I discovered this while cooking.
It just goes to show how important it is to start with a solid recipe. However, this was bound to happen as I had never made ravioli before, so I didn’t know what a solid ravioli recipe was going to look like when I first got started.
When it came time to cook the ravioli, I was low key terrified. Assembling them had been difficult as you have to get two sheets of dough to line up properly and then press them together with egg wash as the glue. Also, this was the first time I used my pasta roller attachment for my Kitchenaid so my sheets of dough weren’t exactly dead on even.
I ended up with nine raviolis I felt confident enough would stay together in boiling water. Which, even then I didn’t feel 100% confident. Thankfully, they stayed in one piece! I put so much cornmeal on them so they didn’t stick together that the water got cloudy and I couldn’t see what was going on while they were cooking. But whenever I moved them around, they all seemed to be okay. When I finally finished them out, they were all intact.
They tasted really good as well! The filling was delicious. I wouldn’t say I plan on making more pasta from scratch tomorrow, but it was definitely a fun experience and I picked up a few new skills.
The Tablescape
The Bread
I made focaccia to go with the pasta and the appetizer. Man, I love focaccia!
I used this recipe. Also, when they say “ball” in this recipe, they mean blob. At no point does this dough ressemble a ball. Not even remotely. It’s a blob at all times.
The Dessert
I have no pictures of this because we devoured it before I could get any. It was amazing though. I see many panna cottas in my future.
I made panna cotta with a triple berry sauce.
Nova’s Revenge
I believe this candlestick offended Nova and she had no other choice than to knock it over. Not the other three. Just this one.
