Now That's-a Ravioli!

I finally made ravioli. It was a team effort and a long process.

On Wednesday afternoon, I made the chicken marsala filling.

On Wednesday evening, Kev got out the pasta-making equipment and we decided to try it out.

We ended up with stiff but useable dough and made enough pasta sheets to make about 20 ravioli.

Then, the dough dried out. D'oh! You've got to keep it covered. And the recipe didn't call for olive oil. It clearly needed olive oil. Live and learn.

We let Daphne knead some dough (if the cook it, they will eat it).

Here comes the first pasta sheet:

On Thursday morning, I made more dough. I added olive oil this time and kept it covered.

That's it in the top picture up there. It worked out much better.

I filled the sheets with the filling:

and I let Daphne do the pressing (if they cook it, etc.):

Voila! The ravioli!

(Is there an Italian phrase like"voila"?)

With the extra dough, I made some fettuccine noodles:

I made them into nests and froze them for later:

Last night, I made the mushroom cream sauce.

Here it is, all put together:

Kev's first word after tasting it was "wow."

Daphne didn't want to eat it. Of course. She pushed her chair away from the table. So, Kev and I ignored her and started talking about how good it was and what a good chef Daphne was because she helped make it after all. Next thing I knew, she tried it, loved it, and asked for more.

At dinner, there was a long discussion about a variety of possible ravioli fillings for next time. Nutella was mentioned. More than once.

There will be a lot more ravioli in our future.

I TOTALLY recommend the filling and sauce recipes. Thank you, Tyler Florence.

And I recommend the KitchenAid pasta attachment and the Norpro ravioli press. Both work very well, and it's a very easy process once you get the hang of it. It was very silly of me to fear the ravioli.

I can now check "make ravioli" off my list.

This morning, Daphne and I made an impromptu visit to Eagle Tree for more blueberries.

Some are in the freezer. Some will be put in Sunday morning pancakes. I still haven't made my favorite blueberry pudding cake. Some, we'll just eat. Maybe I don't hate summer after all. Check with me in August.

This afternoon, I emailed the Chambers of Commerce of several east coast towns, including Nantucket, to ask for travel guides and brochures. I must not hate summer TOO much, because I'm already thinking ahead to the next one.