Adventures With Pasta

Tonight, I made ravioli from scratch. Quite an undertaking, certainly more than I realized. Have I finally gone insane? Have the long hours and radioactivity finally gone to my head? Perhaps. But before you pronounce me totally loony, consider the circumstances: Dan and I have been burning the candle at both ends for quite a few weeks now. The culmination of this was Dan's three tests (Thursday, Friday, and Tuesday, and yes his upcoming tests stressed me out too) and my test Tuesday night. Now that Tuesday is over, we both needed some down time. Dan is still working on homework, but has taken numerous breaks to cruise the internet, watch TV, etc. All well-deserved breaks, I might add. I enjoy TV as well as the next gal, but often end up with a sense of guilt over an evening wasted. So what do I do to relieve stress? I cook. Particularly, I enjoy elaborate or time-consuming things that I wouldn't normally make but love to eat. It's sort of challenging to see if I can do it, and I get a great sense of satisfaction if the dish turns out well. Earlier this summer when work got particularly exhausting, I made gallons of tomato and roasted red pepper pasta sauce with the fruits of our garden (btw, I highly recommend learning to roast your own peppers on the barbecue!). Last spring around finals time it was gnocchi. And so tonight, ravioli.

For starters, I usually paruse several recipes for any given project to get an idea of the general concensus on how to make something, then choose a representative recipe or (more often) wing it on my own. I decided that following an exact recipe for the pasta dough was smartest, so the consistancy turned out right. I should have read more recipes though. The one I followed ended up in the trash. Attempt #2 (new formula) looked much better, but kneading pasta dough is a tough job! Dan had to step in for a bit. :) I did decide to wing it with the filling, and if smell is any indication, it's going to be great! The filling is asparagus, cheese, and garlic. Because it has raw egg, however, I opted out of a taste-test. Rolling out the pasta dough also proved challenging, particularly because a pasta roller is highly recommended over a rolling pin, but I only have the latter. Again Dan stepped in to help, pulling out a tape measure to ensure my top and bottom halves were equal shape and size (only an engineer...). One recipe I read recommended using egg to help seal the edges of each piece... I think I used way too much and ended up with a slimy mess which I'm not sure has sealed up well enough to withstand a boiling pot. They are freezing now to be taste-tested in the next couple days. They may prove messy, but I'm optimistic.

Three hours and 20 raviolis later (not to mention the mounds of dishes in the sink), I have reluctantly agreed NOT to make this as a main dish for the 15 people we have comming over for brunch on Sunday (as Dan reminds me this will require making probably around 100 raviolis), but to wait for a bit smaller crowd. However, I plan to try again soon and fix my mistakes, and anticipate it taking much less time on the second go-around.

You're probably thinking, "Pretty stupid to take on something like that, it obviously didn't help her relax at all!", but you would be wrong. I feel great, I learned a lot, and it was lots of fun! OK, so maybe the radioactivity is going to my head after all... :)

***Note: I realize that "raviolis" is not really the plural of ravioli, but I like the way it sounds. In fact, I wonder if ravioli is already plural, like "alveoli". If so, is one single piece a raviolus? Perhaps a raviola if the filling is feminine? After all, Italian is a romance language. Perhaps I should defer to Ryan Richards for that answer... :)

*** Post-Note: Dan wishes to point out that there are not mounds of dishes in the sink, because he cleaned them all up, as well as the counters.