I have never made ravioli in my life.
But I like to eat it.
My first taste of this Italian staple was when I was in high school, and it came in a big can. Chef Boy-ar-Dee. I thought it was great.
Since then my taste buds have grown to appreciate fresh ravioli. Until a few years ago, the only ravioli I knew about was either meat or cheese filled and served in a tomato sauce. On vacation in Vancouver, Canada, I found pumpkin ravioli on the menu at a dock-side restaurant. It was served in a white sauce that had spinach in it, and sprinkled with roasted pumpkin seeds on top.
!!!!!!*W*O*W*S*E*R*S*!!!!!!
Was I ever impressed!
Just one bite and I knew that I had to include pumpkin ravioli in my regular diet. Finding it proved to be a challenge. I stumbled across a few frozen dinners with pumpkin ravioli and did not like any of them. My quest led me to the frozen food section of Meijer's Grocery, where I found the pasta-stuffed squash "as is", meaning you cook the frozen ravioli and make your own sauce. Again, I thought it was great! And I still do.
But still, I've had this burning desire to make my own. For one thing, the frozen product is shipped from Italy. I know! Kinda far, eh? The other factor being that it is kinda expensive. The last factor is that we grow plenty of pie pumpkins, and if we have a crop fail, I can always get locally grown pumpkins from our farmers markets.
Making my own pumpkin ravioli with fresh, local ingredients and no preservatives or additives makes sense to me. Looking up ravioli recipes left me discouraged because the process seems too complicated.
AND THEN...
Monday I found a handy kitchen gadget for making ravioli! Being a gadget-fanatic, I bought it without giving it a second thought. Well, actually I did have a second thought...and that is that before the week was over, I'd be making my own, homemade pumpkin ravioli.
ANOTHER QUEST was begun; hunting down a recipe for pumpkin filling. I searched websites and cookbooks to no avail, and then it hit me. Like most cooking, making a ravioli filling is a process. The recipes usually called for a cup of pumpkin puree and about half a cup of Parmesan or Ricotta cheese. Then a few spices.
So....armed with this information and not caring if I make a disaster, I decided to make the filling *my* way.
I am half-way through the process now. My plan is pumpkin ravioli for dinner tonight.
For the filling I decided on one cup of canned pumpkin puree (we are out of pie pumpkins) and one-half cup of shredded Italian cheese blend. I want a savory filling, so I added 1 teaspoon of Penzey's Mural of Flavor. Now...this is the 'iffy' part. Is that enough spice? After all, pumpkin is pretty bland, making it the perfect food for flavoring it how you want it. Or...is one teaspoon the perfect amount? After all, I don't want to choke on ravioli that has been over spiced.
I decided to err on the side of caution, and left it at one teaspoon. Only tonight's taste test will let me know if I've guessed correctly.
That's all I've got, so far. My next adventure will be in making the pasta dough and actually assembling the ravioli. The gadget makes it look simple enough, but my many years of kitchen cooking experiments have taught me that looks can often be deceiving! But I figure, what is the worse that could happen? That the recipe is such a failure that we have to eat chili twice today? I must admit...I "over spiced" the chili that I made for lunch. My throat is still angry at me. My plan is to add more tomatoes and beans to the remaining chili to cool it down a notch or two before serving it again. :)
One last thing, the pot of green in the picture is the parsley that I started on January 29th. All four herbs that were seeded that day are growing nicely. YAY! Success! Now if it would only warm up enough that I could plant a few things outside :)
Marcheta *curious epicurean
P.S. Do you invent your own recipes? If you would like to share your tasty concoctions, I'd love to post them for you. :)
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