Mushroom Ravioli

I apologize to those of you without pasta rollers.  I'm having fun with my new kitchen gadget and tonight the most wonderful mushroom ravioli came from it!  Well, the ravioli tasted amazing, but it looked kind of funky.  I think I still need to get the hang of the consistency of pasta dough and rolling the dough thinner.  Or maybe I just need to remember that pasta expands a lot when you boil it, so I should make my ravioli and dumplings a lot smaller.  Ha ha!  Oh well, no matter.  Who doesn't love a giant ravioli right?  Especially if it tastes amazing!

I found the recipe for Mushroom Ravioli from foodgawker (it was submitted by a blog called "These Days") and I didn't make too many adjustments.  Just a few. 

Like....
- I didn't have cognac, so I omitted it.
- I didn't have semolina flour, so I used all purpose (I can't seem to find organic semolina anywhere either.  Anyone found this somewhere?  I usually get my flours from bulk sections because they're cheaper, but organic semolina is always absent)
- I had some portabella mushrooms, so I used crimini and portabella.  I LOVE portabella mushrooms.  You may not, it's purely a taste thing.

- I didn't have fresh thyme or parsley, so I used dried.  I'm sure the dish would have been really enhanced by the presence of fresh herbs.

-I had already bought ricotta cheese assuming that every recipe for mushroom ravioli I found on the internet would use ricotta, but low and behold this one asked for cottage cheese.  Whatever, the ricotta tasted great!

I think that's it. 

The pasta portion of the ingredients called for "oil", I used coconut oil.

Well, that probably looks like a lot of adjustments, but in my mind they were pretty minimal. 

I don't usually feel that I should write all the ingredients and the method on my blog if I haven't changed that much in the recipe and if I get the recipe from someone else's blog.  So here are the pictures from the ravioli process that happened tonight! 



I chopped the mushrooms in the food processor.  So much faster!



I also made the pasta dough in the food processor.  This was the consistency of the dough right before I started adding water tablespoon by tablespoon.

 

Pasta dough ready to be balled up for rest.  I think I ended up adding too much water again, but this time we're talking like, maybe a teaspoon or two instead of like half a cup more than needed (as in the dumpling fiasco).





Dough rolled out and mounds of filling ready for action!



Being a newbie to the pasta world, I had a bit of trouble making sure all the air was out of the ravioli.  I also brushed the surface of the pasta with a bit of water as I've seen done on cooking shows before.  While the water made the pasta stick better, it made getting air bubbles out a pain.  Any advice here?



The finished product!  Super yum. 


I just threw some extra mushrooms and garlic in a pot with some tomato sauce and italian seasoning and it made a great simple sauce for the ravioli! 

**Just a note!  I probably won't attempt to make this on a weeknight again.  At least not until I'm more proficient at working with pasta dough.  It always looks so uncomplicated, but it also always takes three times longer than I expect.  From start to finish, I think this took me about 2 hours total.  Way too long for a Wednesday night dinner prep, in my opinion.


In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.
Dear heavenly Father,
  thank you for little mouths to feed and little hands to hold.  Please bring our little Gregory into the outside world safely and soon!  Amen.