How to make Homemade Ravioli with a really good butternut squash filling and smothered in a creamy sauce.

In my shopping frenzy at the farmers market the other day I bought the nicest squash. I decided to make homemade ravioli. I had never made ravioli before and I thought: how hard can it be? The question I should’ve asked is: How long will this take?

First, I quartered my squash, covered it in olive oil, salt,pepper and put it in the oven for baby and me . . wait, that’s not right . . . It’s hormonal my brain takes all sorts of turns in odd directions when I’m not looking. So. I put it in the oven at about 375F for 45 minutes or so. I wasn’t paying much attention to the time as I was trying to whip up the ravioli dough.

Butternut squash before going into oven.

Some flour, a few eggs salt and pepper into my mixer. Recipe said to mix until dough forms a ball. (I googled home made ravioli and have since lost the paper I printed it out on so – go google, get the recipe and leave me alone)

Here is the ball of dough after adding a bit more egg and olive oil. I kneaded the dough for about 10 minutes and let the dough rest for about an hour or so. (recipe said 30 minutes) Then started rolling. The rolling took forever.

Pasta dough is not the most forgiving sort. I wished for a pasta maker attachment for my Kitchen Aid mixer or at least a heavy marble rolling pin. So I rolled and rolled and rolled. Until my arms hurt my head hurt and my feet hurt.

Here’s the recipe for the filling: 1 Squash, 1 Cup full fat ricotta, 1/4 tsp or so nutmeg,cinnamon, salt and pepper to taste. Whiz it up in your food processer, done. I put the filling into a piping bag. It was easier to get onto the dough and looked much prettier. Yes?

(I got the filling recipe from The Food Networks’ Giada De Laurentiis of “Everyday Italian”)

Look at my lovely row of pretty filling. The recipe called for an egg wash between the filling to act as the glue for the top layer. I tried it once but it turned the dough into a goopy mess and I couldn’t re use the dough when making more. I didn’t use the egg wash for the next batch and the ravioli still turned out great and stayed together without the egg wash.

All done (all that work for a few ravioli?)

It was getting late and I was too lazy to make a sauce and I didn’t want to wait for water to boil so I fried some ravioli up in butter and olive oil . . .

. . . . Sprinkled with freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese and some olive oil . . oh so delicious and worth the hours of rolling out dough . .

The Next Night:

Here’s the sauce I made. I had cooked up some bacon earlier so rather than cleaning the pan I put it aside to use the leftover pork fat and crispy drippings for my creamy sauce. Mmmmmm.

I deglazed the pan with about 1/2 cup of white wine. Let the wine reduce for a bit, added some heavy cream, let it reduce and bubble away then I added the parmesan cheese a little bit of grated nutmeg, salt and pepper mix, mix and voila! The creamiest most amazing sauce in the world.

I fried up some greens in a bit of Olive oil and garlic, boiled up the ravioli . . . added ravioli to the sauce . . Here it is all plated up and ready to go. It was sooooo good. The greens were perfect with the richness of the ravioli and cream sauce. Mmmmmm delicious delicious.

Dig in. Doesn’t that look good?