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Wednesday, January 06, 2010

Dinner is served.

homemade ravioli
lemondrop martini
Homemade Butternut squash ravioli and my lemondrop martini. The lemondrop was my cocktail of choice before dinner while hubby's prefer's a dry gin martini with a twist. Making Martini's is fun; and I've been working to perfect my Lemondrop. Look how nicely my sugared rim turned out. Nice little ice crytals also in the froth. My best yet.

We had a nice bottle of wine (Gran Tarapaca Pinot Noir Reserve with the pasta dish. The wine is a full bodied (raspberry, cherry & plum) ruby wine from Chile. The pasta my first attempt at making homemade ravioli. A post or two back I mentioned my daughter and I made a ton of pasta. This was 1 of 4 types we made. Butternut Squash Ravioli stuffed with Mascarpone.
  1. Cook the squash (slice it in half and cook in the microwave)
  2. Cut squash in small pieces, add some liquid (we used juice from mandarin oranges) and make a puree in food processor/blender. We used processor, but I think blender would have worked better
  3. Add flour 1/4th cup at a time and mix (regular wheat flour, whole wheat, and semolina). Mix with fork until you can't any longer, switch to mixing and kneading with your hands. This takes quite awhile. Using a whole squash made a very large amount of dough.
  4. Refrigerate dough to rest it.
  5. Add flour to prepare it for the rolling in pasta machine (I have a hand crank unit). Make long rectangles, as evenly as you can (I rolled several times on each setting 1-2-3 and stopped after rolling twice on 4)
  6. Use Ravioli cutter to make squares (remember you need top and bottom). Add Mascarpone to center of one square. Dip your finger into bowl of water and run around edge of the square you've added filling to. Place 2nd square on top, pinching 4 edges. Arrange on counter, cookie sheet, or cloth to dry. Once partial dry, flip over and when you feel they're not going to stick together store in zip lock bag in freezer. Try to keep from breaking by laying flat.
**Remember cooking fresh pasta requires less cooking time than boxed or frozen pasta.
I served this was red and yellow peppers, onion, and small green beans. Mix those items and cook about 3 minutes in the microwave with a drizzle of olive oil. Cut up a dozen little smokies and cook 1 minute in microwave, then add smokies to veggies and cook one more minute. Depending on how much olive oil you used in the cooking process you may or may not need to drizzle a bit more on your pasta. Garnish with fresh peppercorn and grated Asiago Cheese and enjoy.

8 comments:

  1. Wow you've been busy lately with the making pasta, mixing up martini's, knitting and crocheting. What time do you usually serve dinner cause I think I'm coming over!

    E

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  2. This sounds delicious, Sandy, but that lemondrop martini is sounding really good too! I tried a lemon liquor for the first time over the holidays, and I LOVED it! It was pretty expensive though, I thought, so I may shop around for different brands.. Anyways... What time do you think I should show up for dinner?! (0; Ha! Ha! Just kidding, but thanks for sharing your recipe! Have a good day, and stay warm! ~tina

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  3. Wow! Does that ever sound delicious! Let's have a party!

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  4. Looks delicious! You are making me hungry ;)

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  5. Michelle5:00 PM

    Is the lemondrop the type of Martini Ophra talks about? I think it is. Looks very nice.

    Sounds like making homemade pasta is hard work; but reading this sure has made me hungry.

    Michelle

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  6. Hey, how's that snow working for you? We are supposed to get belted up here in the Northern half. 3-6 and then another lake effect from Erie. Those can go either way up to 12". Are we having fun yet. My brother in law is in a Parish up in Chardon Ohio, the trees are heavy laden with snow, touching wires :( Hope you don't get it to hard.

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  7. ps..I rather like Martini's myself. I get a taste for them now and then. Usually around the holiday. Never had a lemon drop Martini, I have had lemon drops before, they made me very tipsy.. never had another since. Anything too sweet I drink to fast. Martini's you just can do
    fast..they are so good.

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  8. I do believe that the next time you fix this dinner you should be calling and inviting a few family members over. We could all taste test for you!!! It looks delicious!!!

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