Yumellini Tortellini

I have a new obsession...and it would be homemade pasta. I tell you, obsessed. All week, I couldn't stop thinking about homemade tortellini. So, while Steve was off shooting a wedding last night, I slaved away in the kitchen for 3 hours fulfilling my need for tortellini.

I found a basic recipe on Barefoot Kitchen Witch for a cheese-filled tortellini, and a simple tomato sauce recipe on Use Real Butter. Recipes are at the end, but first I'll walk you through the process.

It was the same start as other pasta recipes - the well of flour that you crack and beat eggs inside of. Remember my struggle with this when I made the spinach noodles? Ugh, this was even messier! Egg eww'd and goo'd all over the place, but somehow I managed to keep it contained.


For the first time since I've been making pasta, the dough didn't come together. The recipe called for 4 jumbo eggs are 5 large eggs. I only had extra large eggs, so I only used 4. I ended up with just flour crumbs everywhere. Gah. So I threw it in the KitchenAid with the dough hook, added another egg, and it finally came together. I kneaded it by hand to finish, and ended up with something cohesive, finally. It's not prettiest, but it got the job done.


After the dough sat for around 30 minutes, I started rolling out my strips with my KitchenAid pasta roller. My round cutter was around 1.5-2 inches in diameter. If you have a metal one - use it. The plastic cutters don't cut through as well. I would cut out circles for 1 or 2 strips, make the tortellini, and then do more. This helped break up the process since I was doing this alone.


After cutting out your circles, put some of your filling in the center. This is a mixture of part skim ricotta, parmesan, and mozzarella. It will be very easy to tell after doing one or two if you have too much filling - it will ooze out once you fold it!


Using your finger, get the bottom half of the circle a little wet, fold the top of the circle over and pinch it closed.


Fold the half-circle in half and wet the two ends a little bit so they'll stick, and pinch the ends together. Make sure everything is closed tight so it won't ooze out later!


Line a baking sheet with a clean towel and start lining up your finished tortellini. They do dry out as they sit there, but that's fine.


I can't help sharing another close up, they just look so cute!


Put the finished tortellini in a pot of boiling water. As they start to bubble up to the top, take them out of the water with a slotted spoon. I put all of mine (about 50-60) in the water at once, so a handful of them stuck to the bottom of the pot. It might be easier, depending on how many you make, to boil half at a time. I ended up throwing out a lot of dough, because I couldn't handle making any more - I was hungry! But what I made gave us two hefty servings.


As I scooped them out, I put them in a bowl until they were all done.


Earlier on, I made up my sauce and had it waiting, so as I boiled the tortellini, I could just re-heat the sauce and add it to the hot tortellini.

I started with 1 pound of tomatoes. The recipe called for 2 pounds...so I just halved the recipe because this is all I had.


The tomatoes needed to be peeled. Usually I boiled water and add them in, but this recipe suggested you boil the water and pour it over the tomatoes. Genius! I could use the tea kettle instead of a pot. I love peeling tomatoes! See how the skin was raising away from the flesh?


After peeling, seeding, and chopping the tomatoes, I added them to the olive oil and garlic that I had cooked up, and let it simmer. Toward the end, I added the tomato juice that I had saved from the tomatoes, and then reduce it down.


Once all of the tortellini had been cooked, I added the sauce (what little there was - it definitely didn't make enough!) and added some freshly grated parm. Manga!


Yes, 3 hours later, I ate. And it was de.lic.ious. Amazing. I can't wait to make these again, but I would try out a meat filling (although the cheese mixture was great), have Steve been in charge of the sauce, and get an extra set of hands so that the actually production of the tortellini goes faster.

Are you ambitious enough to make your own tortellini?!

To Make the Tortellini
Source

For the pasta
4 jumbo eggs (or 5 large)
3 1/2 cups of all purpose flour

For the filling
1 1/2 cups ricotta (I used part skim)
4 ounces mozzarella
1/4 cup freshly grated parmesan

Mound the flour on your work surface and make a well in the center. Put your eggs in the well and whisk the eggs together with a fork. As you do this, begin to incorporate flour into the eggs, working around the edges of the well, keeping the walls intact so you don't have a flood of egg on your counter.

You'll get to a point where using the fork is pointless, so squeeze the dough off that fork, toss it in the sink and dust your hands with flour. And start kneading. It will take a while for the whole rough mass to come together into something actually workable. You've got to knead it for a long time - about half an hour by hand or use a dough hook in the KitchenAid.

When the dough has been kneaded the right amount, you will know. The surface will be smooth and soft, and as you are kneading, you'll notice that when you do that pulling part, stretching the surface of the dough, the surface won't crack any more. The dough will seem to breathe. You can poke it and the indentation will push back when you've taken your finger or knuckle away.
At this point, wrap the dough tightly in plastic wrap and let it rest at room temp.

Mix all of the ingredients together for the filling, add salt and pepper to taste. You could also add fresh or dried herbs, some nutmeg, red pepper flakes, etc.

Unwrap the ball of dough, and cut it into quarters. Keep one of them out and wrap up the other three. This is a very dry dough - it won't stick to your work surface, for instance, so you do not need to dust that with flour.

Cut the dough into quarters and roll very thin, either by hand or with a pasta roller. I went down to Level 4 on my pasta roller, which got it quite thin - I think just about right. Use a round cutter between 1 3/4 - 2 inches to cut out your circles.

As you cut the circles out, stack them up and cover them with a drinking glass or bowl or something to prevent them from drying out. You can also sprinkle a TINY bit of flour on each side of the dough before you start cutting, and smooth it over the dough surface with your hand, just to prevent the circles from sticking together.

Okay, now you can either go through each quarter piece of dough and cut ALL the circles out first, or you can do it in batches, which is what I chose to do. Either way is fine.

So you take some circles - a few at a time, because the dough will dry out - and set them down on your work surface, and place a small bit of your filling in the center. As long as you seal the edges well, the tortellini won't burst open while cooking.

To form the tortellini, after you put a teeny tiny bit of filling in the center, dip the tip of your finger in some water and very lightly moisten the dough all around the edge of the circle. Then you want to fold the circle in half and press along the edges to seal the filling inside. Then, holding the half moon of dough with the rounded side toward you, bring the points together and overlap them, pressing together to seal them.

Place the finished tortellini on a dry dish towel or other clean cloth, and leave them at room temp. They'll start to dry out, but that's just fine at this point.

Put a large pot of water on the stove and while it's heating up, make a sauce, if you're making one (or do it beforehand, like I did). When the water came to a full boil gently added about half the tortellini. They sink to the bottom and then as they cook through they gently float to the top.

To Make the Tomato Sauce
Source

2 lbs ripe tomatoes
3-4 tbsps olive oil
6-8 cloves garlic, minced
pinch sugar
salt to taste
pepper to taste

Place the tomatoes in a large bowl and pour boiling water into the bowl until the tomatoes are covered. Let stand for 5-10 minutes or until you see the skins splitting on most of the tomatoes. Drain the tomatoes and peel the skins off. Discard the skins.

Place a sieve over a bowl. Slice each tomato in half along the equator and shake or scoop the seeds out into the sieve. Strain the juice from the seeds and pulp. Discard the seeds and pulp, reserve the juice. Dice the tomatoes.

Heat the olive oil in a large pan over medium heat. Add the garlic and sauté until fragrant. Add the tomatoes and simmer until the tomato flesh begins to break down (about 20 minutes). Add the reserved juice and let simmer down to a sauce consistency. Season with a pinch of sugar, salt, and pepper to taste. Toss the sauce with the hot tortellini and top with grated Parmesan and chopped flat-leaf parsley or fresh basil, which is what I did.

A Green Noodle Sunday

A long, long time ago (you know, before I fell down the rabbit's hole of wedding planning) I was a member of the Daring Bakers. Each month there would be a new baking challenge that I would manage to get done by the deadline.

One month, the challenge was a spinach lasagna, featuring homemade spinach noodles. I skipped that month due to lack of time. And, quite honestly, I didn't have a pasta roller at the time so who knows what lumpy state my noodles would have been in. Now, almost a year later, I have redeemed myself and conquered the green noodle. Oh, and I lived to blog about it.

It all started out with 5 ounces of yummy organic baby spinach.


I wilted the spinach in my steamer/rice cooker and then put it in a colander to squish out all of the extra liquid.


I then finely chopped the wilted spinach.


Putting 2 cups of all-purpose flour on my trusty Crate & Barrel mat, I created a well in the flour and cracked 3 eggs into it. Using a fork, I lightly beat the eggs within the well. Can someone please explain to me why they have you do this? There ended up being egg running everywhere. If you want to retain your sanity, beat the eggs beforehand.


After the egg ran amuck all over my mat, I managed to gather it up with the flour, and then dropped the chopped spinach into the mess. Some hand cleaning, kneading, and a little extra flour resulted in this lovely little ball of noodle dough. I wrapped it up and let it rest for 30 or 45 minutes.


After the dough had rested, I took a piece of it and starting putting it through my KitchenAid pasta roller, starting with level 1 and moving up to 5. It takes a bit to get the hang of, and the more you work with the dough, the more the spinach gets worked in. The noodles on the front of the board were the first that I did, and could have been run through more. The two in the back are much better.


One noodle at a time went into a pot of boiling, salted water for about 1 minute, into an ice bath for a couple of minutes, and then laid out onto a clean towel.


When you start rolling out the noodles, it can get stressful. I tend to scream and yell. Fortunately, Steve is able to overlook my nervous energy and general frustrations and helps me out. He took over the noodles in the boiling and cooling department.


While my dough was resting I had started my lasagna sauce. The only lasagna I've ever made was my grandmother's recipe. I'm pretty sure it is the most basic of basic recipes, and I don't have any memories of her making this lasagna, but nevertheless it's the recipe I use and I'm sticking with it.

As you can tell, we like our organic meats from Whole Foods. For our lasagna we bought a pound of organic ground bison. Bison, if you didn't know is a very lean meat - leaner than red meat and even chicken.


After sauteing an onion and cooking the meat with garlic, salt and pepper, I added tomato sauce and tomato soup to the mix. Whole Foods 365 brand is great for these basics (organic and cheap!). We have been addicted to this creamy tomato basil soup.


After the sauce simmered for a half hour or so and the noodles were all cooked, we layed the noodles in a glass baking dish with the sauce and some part-skim mozzarella, topping it off with more mozzarella and freshly grated parmesan.


I popped it into a 350 degree oven, covered with foil, for 30 minutes, and then baked it uncovered for an additional 15 minutes until it was browned up and bubbling.


What else to serve on the side but spinach salad!


I am IN LOVE with these spinach noodles- only three ingredients and you get something so tasty. The lasagna held up wonderfully for dinner the next two nights and the noodles were just as tasty each night.

Thank you again to Steve for saving my butt in the kitchen. I'm pretty sure he just does it because he wants to eat as a semi-reasonable hour. But regardless, his help when I'm at my wit's end is very appreciated.

For the Spinach Pasta:
5 ounces fresh spinach
2 to 2-1/2 cups flour
3 eggs

Steam the spinach until just wilted. Cool a little and squeeze all the liquid out. Chop finely. Mound flour on work surface. Make a well in the center and break eggs into the well. Beat lightly with fork and add the spinach into the eggs (or pre-beat the eggs before adding if you don't want a mess on your hands. Litterally.). Mix with fork. Start incorporating the flour until all the flour is added. If still sticky, add more flour, little by little, until you have a dough that is not too dry and not too sticky. Knead by hand for 5 minutes. Wrap in well floured plastic wrap and set aside to rest at least for 30 minutes.

Cut a section of dough and put through pasta maker rollers on widest setting. Fold in thirds, dust with more flour, and put through rollers again. Do this a few times and then adjust rollers to next number. Put pasta through the rollers, adding flour if you need to so it doesn't stick. Adjust rollers to next number and run pasta through until you run the pasta through setting #5. Lay pasta out on well floured surface and cut to length of your pan.

Bring a large pot of well salted water to boil and prepare a large bowl filled with ice water. Cook the lasagna noodles, only 2 or 3 at a time for just a minute or so. Take out with a large spider or spoon and place the pasta in the ice bath for a couple of minutes. Remove the pasta and place on a clean towel. Repeat until all the pasta is cooked.

Grandma Susin's Lasagna

½ C Chopped White Onion
2 tsp Oil
1 lb Ground Beef (or Bison!)
Garlic
Salt
Pepper
1 tsp Oregano
1 tsp Parsley
16 Ounces Tomato Sauce
1 C Tomato Soup
6 Lasagna Noodles
Parmesan cheese
Shredded Mozzarella Cheese

Sauté chopped onion in oil. Remove from skillet. Brown ground beef and add garlic, salt, and pepper. Return onions to skillet and add oregano, parsley, tomato sauce, and tomato soup. Simmer for ½ hour. Cook and cool 6 lasagna noodles. Layer cooked noodles, sauce, and mozzarella cheese. Top with Parmesan cheese. Bake in a 350-degree oven for 30 minutes covered with foil. Uncover and bake an additional 15 minutes.

Fresh Ravioli in Sage & Black Pepper Butter Sauce

One of the items on our registry that I was dying for was the KitchenAid Paster Roller attachment. Now, mind you, this only rolls out the pasta - I could have gone wild and crazy and registered for the set that included the different pasta cutters as well. But that just seemed far too extravagant and I couldn't imagine that anyone would end up shelling out for the whole set just so I could make fresh fettucini.

All-in-all, I love the roller. It's SO easy to use and great for making lasagna noodles, ravioli, and even just long pasta sheets that you hand cut yourself into noodles.

Awhile back I decided to be a good wife and make dinner for my husband. I rarely cook, unless you define "cooking" as microwaving, as Steve is far more gifted in the kitchen. But, I decided I could easily tackle this ravioli recipe I randomly found online.

Since I was home alone, there are no pictures of me using my pasta roller. You'll just have to imagine how magical and wonderful this experience was. Within a matter of minutes, I had four sheets of pasta!

I was making a basil and two-cheese filling ravioli, so I layed everything out...


And using just a round cutter, turned each into a cute little noodle-y package (note: my dough could have been rolled a little thinner).


I feared that as I dropped each into the boiling water, they'd explode into a gooey, globby mass of ricotta. Instead, they cooked up perfectly.


I made up the sage and black pepper butter sauce while the cooked ravioli was covered to stay warm. Making the sauce was by far the most stressful part of the whole process. Anything that includes a hot pan and oil terrifies me (but notice our new FANTASTIC Calphalon pans?!).


And, voila! A little shredded parm on top and we were in business. Steve came home right as I plated everything up. I like to think he enjoyed coming home to a dinner cooked up by yours truly, although I'm pretty sure he'd tell me is was fantastic no matter what. He's nice like that.

Basil & Two-Cheese Ravioloni in Sage & Black Pepper Butter Recipe
Source

For the fresh pasta dough:
2 and ¼ cups unbleached all-purpose flour, plus extra for the counter and trays
¼ teaspoon salt
3 large eggs

For the basil and two-cheese filling:
2 cups fresh whole-milk Ricotta (I used part skim)
½ cup freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Grated zest of 1 small lemon
24 large, perfect basil leaves, stems completely removed

For the egg wash:
1 large egg, beaten to blend with 3 tablespoons water

For the sage and black pepper sauce:
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
16 sage leaves, cut into fine strips
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

To cook the ravioli and serve:
2 tablespoons salt
½ cup freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

How to Make

Make the dough:
Mix the flour and salt on a counter and shape into a mound. Make a well in the center and add the eggs to the well. Using your fingertips, work the flour into the eggs, then gather into a dough and knead by hand; add a little water if the dough is too dry or a little flour if it is too moist. Knead for 10 minutes, or until smooth, then shape into a ball, wrap in plastic, and let rest 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, make the filling:
Combine all the ingredients except the basil in a large bowl. Set aside.

Assemble the ravioli:
Cut the dough into 4 pieces. Working with 1 sheet at a time and keeping the others covered, roll each piece out into a very thin sheet using a pasta machine; the sheets should be nearly transparent after rolling (the thinnest setting on the pasta machine is suitable for this). Be sure to lightly dust the sheets of pasta with flour every time you roll them through the pasta machine or they may stick or tear.

Brush 2 of the lasagna sheets lightly with the egg wash. Arrange the basil leaves on the brushed lasagna sheets, pretty side down (be sure to COMPLETELY remove the stem from the basil leaves or the sharp stem end might pierce the delicate ravioli dough) about 4 inches apart, and top with equal amounts of the Ricotta filing (about 1 tablespoon each). Top with the remaining 2 lasagna sheets. Cut into 4-inch circles using a round cookie cutter. Press the edges of each ravioli to seal well. Spread the ravioli out on a lightly floured tray in a single layer and cover with a clean, dry towel.

Make the sauce:
Melt the butter in a small pan and add the sage leaves, salt, and pepper. Cook over medium heat for 2 minutes, or just long enough to infuse the sage aroma into the butter and lightly crisp the sage leaves.

Cook the ravioli:
Bring 4 quarts of water to a boil. Drop in half of the ravioli and the 2 tablespoons of salt and cook until al dente, about 3 minutes. Remove to a heated platter with a slotted spoon, placing the ravioli with the basil leaf facing up. Repeat with the remaining ravioli.

Reserve ¼ cup of the pasta cooking water. Add the reserved pasta cooking water to the butter sauce and swirl once or twice to combine. Pour the sauce over the ravioli, sprinkle with the Parmigiano, dust with additional pepper, and serve immediately.