The everyday life of an amateur Mother, gardener baker and cook.

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Pasta Italiana!



True story..... I, a lover of homemade things, have never made my own pasta sauce. I know, sacrilegious you say. So I decided it was about time to venture out and whip up some sauce and to top it all off I was inspired to try my own pasta as well.
I wanted to make a pasta that had filling, cheese filling in particular. Going with my motto, 'cheese makes everything better!'. With a little inspiration from the Husband, I went with a ricotta and spinach filling, in a ravioli noodle. I picked ravioli as it looked the least challenging of the filled pastas.
For the sauce, I used sun dried tomatoes as my inspiration and went with a tomato sauce.
I rustled myself up a 5 year old helper, who started dreaming away her pasta creations, and we got started!

Ingredients:

Pasta
2 cups flour
3 eggs
1 tsp. olive oil
1 tsp. water
pinch salt
( I read about a million recipes for pasta, some used oil and water, some did not. As it was my dough was a bit dry so I needed the water and I though the oil would help it to not stick)

Filling
2 cups fresh spinach
3 cloves garlic
3/4 cup ricotta cheese
s & p

Sauce
1/2 cup sun dried tomatoes
small onion
4 cloves garlic
2 tbsp olive oil
1 cup sliced mushrooms
1 cup grated zucchini
1 can diced tomatoes
1/2 cup tomato paste
1/4 cup fresh, chopped basil
s &p

First I made my filling for my pasta.
I put the spinach and garlic in some olive oil and cooked them till the spinach was soft, about 5 minutes. I then chopped up the spinach, let it cool a bit and mixed it with the ricotta. I put this in the fridge while I made my pasta.





I made the pasta dough in my mixer, using the dough hook. I mixed it about 3-4 minutes then took it out and hand kneaded for a minute or so. I then rolled it out. Looking back my dough was not thin enough. I found the rolling out to be very hard and the dough was quite stiff and springy. I think next time I will add a bit more water to it to see if that helps. But, I rolled it the best I could and my helper rolled hers out the best her little arms could too!
Perhaps what I need to invest in is the pasta roller attachment for my mixer? (My birthday IS less than 2 months away!)
By then my arms were pooped but I still managed to make a flat sheet, then  I cut it into two equal sized sheets. I dropped my filling in little piles on one of the sheets. Then I used water to moisten around the filling piles and placed my second sheet on top. I sealed up around each of the filling piles then cut between to make square ravioli's!
Also in retrospect, I would have used more filling! I found that it wasn't quite enough, and had the dough been thinner I think it would also have been easier to fill them..... next time!
I gave them a dusting of flour so they wouldnt stick to the plate and put them in the fridge for later.

Elysabeth's pasta creations!




Ok, now for the sauce.....

First I covered the sun dried tomatoes with boiling water to plump them up. As this was doing its thing I started cooking the veggies. I cooked the onion, garlic, mushrooms and zucchini up in some olive oil. Once these looked cooked I added the diced tomatoes and tomato paste. Then I drained the sun dried tomatoes, saving the water and adding it to the sauce. I chopped up the sun dried tomatoes and added them in. Last, I put in the basil and some s & p to taste. I found at first the sauce was pretty 'tomatoey', but I covered it up and let it simmer for over an hour and the taste just got better. The end result was pretty yummy and even better topped on our homemade pasta creations.



So pretty much I would say I'm a natural Italian.....Well, not really yet.... But I may fool some of you in the future! Pasta night at the Hillis' was a success, enjoyed by all except the littlest Hillis who enjoyed her brown rice, gluten free pasta, sorry Kayleigh!
Perhaps next time I will be as bold as to attempt the tortellini, hmmmm.... Stay tuned!

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