Food, Glorious Food

Since today is supposed to be fun Friday, and I have nothing really fun to post, I thought I would talk about food. What's more fun than food?

Ever grab a glass of orange juice first thing in the morning, and actually thought you poured yourself a glass of milk, that first big gulp is always gross, until your brain catches up and you realize it was orange juice.

That sort of happened to Brian when we were in Italy, my aunt made ravioli and Brian thought they were cheese or meat filled, not filled with squash. So needless to say he didn't like them, but this week he asked me if I could make those? Could I make those, sure I can!!

So today on the dinner menu was roasted butternut squash ravioli with a brown butter sage sauce and chewy Oreo bars for dessert.

I have never actually made ravioli before, and just conquered the tortellini thing, so I was ready to try this. 

I first melted 1 tbsp butter and sautéed 3 tbsp of minced shallots.

Added about 1 c of squash puree, and cooked until the puree dried out a bit. Then added 3tbsp of heavy cream and cooked another minute or two. Removed it from the heat added salt and pepper, 3tbsp grated Parmesan cheese and some nutmeg. And let the whole thing cool.

While it was cooling I made the dessert, this is the easiest thing ever. It's like an Oreo flavored rice crispy treat. Line an 8x8 pan with foil. Take 1 package of Oreo's smoosh them with a rolling pin. Then take 1 package of large marshmallows and 5 tbsp butter put them in a microwave safe bowl and cook until melted...about 2 minutes. Mix the marshmallow mixture and the Oreo's together and pour into the pan, let set for 15 min. Done!!

OK so dessert is done, ravioli filling is cooled it's time to make the pasta dough. Making pasta dough is really easy to do and much better for you than the stuff in the box, I really don't know why I don't make it more often.

 I used 2 1/3 cups semolina flour, 2 eggs 1 tbsp olive oil and 2/3 c warm water. I started it on the counter and finish it in the mixer.

Next I had to roll out the dough, and you definitely need a pasta machine for this, but worth the price you pay for it. 

I don't have a fancy ravioli cutter, I just used a pastry knife and a fork to make the edges pretty.

The last step was boil some water, and cook the ravioli for about 4 minutes, and while that was happening, I made the brown butter sauce, using 8 tbsp butter and some fresh sage leaves. I melted the butter until it started turning slightly brown and added the sage leaves.

When the ravioli were done cooking, I drained them and poured the brown butter sauce all over them and topped them with Parmesan cheese. Yummy deliciousness, if I do say so my self!

Dinner was a hit, everyone loved it, even with Matt who doesn't like squash (we didn't tell him it was squash until after he said it was really good).

I know this...In My Life everything I make may not be a hit, but the ones that are make me smile.