Pasta Friday, Frugal Friday

My family are getting a treat tonight. Fresh Pasta. Ravioli to be more specific. Sausage ravioli with tomato sauce.

Cost for a family of five - approximately $6. Add salad and baguettes for perhaps another $2. The most expensive thing here is the sausage. It helps that I had nearly free eggs and canned my own tomatoes. Buying it all from the store - probably about $10 ($12 with the salad/bread). I am fortunate to live somewhere where I have access to plenty of local, delicious produce, meats and grains. This meal could be 100% local (except in my case, salt -can you actually get table salt from the Goderich mine?) in this case, the only thing not is my olive oil, parmesan and mysterious table salt. Parmesan can sometimes be found locally depending on where you live. At the very least, it is probably found in your country.

I decided on the fly this morning to spend my day making dinner. You read that right, the day. This isn't something that I can, or really anyone can do everyday. However, once in awhile, for a special treat or occasion - why not? I write "day" because I started this at about 11 - but it only took about 2 hours. Not bad, however it is better if you are able to do this early, even the day before so the ravioli has a chance to dry in the fridge or freezer. Cooking them from frozen works great. Similar afternoon cooking adventures at my house include making perogy (these take hours also, believe me), and flour tortillas. Tortillas don't take nearly as long - but they do take awhile to roll out and fry. Much like naan. These are simple foods, but you really need time to prepare them.

I should add a disclaimer now - the following (and preceding examples) would be much easier if you have a partner or team with you. I didn't as I decided to do this on a Friday when no one was home. I am still learning to use my pasta maker too. It was my special Christmas present - a splurge really. Mine is the deluxe model with ALL the attachments. Today I will only be using the roller however because the sausage is too heavy and not ground enough to make it through the ravioli maker. So I will be making hand cut ravioli.

The recipe for the pasta and sauce I used is adapted from Michael Smith at the Food Network.

Pasta:
4 cups of all-purpose flour
6 eggs
1 tsp olive oil

Filling:
3/4 lb Italian sausage, bulk or with casings removed
1 large shallot, chopped
2 T chopped sage
grating of nutmeg (optional)
1/2 c Parmigiano, grated
1 beaten egg

Sauce

1 onion, chopped

3 cloves of garlic, minced

2 jars (24 oz) of canned tomatoes, Italian seasoned (or add your seasonings of choice)

1 jar (8oz) tomato paste

First thing. Assemble as many ingredients and equipment as you can.  I used home-canned tomatoes and tomato paste, because I had them, but you can use any canned you have available. This is also a great way to use up eggs - our ladies are still laying quite a few eggs despite the weather.

I am using my Christmas gifts - new pasta maker and handmade (by my husband and son) pasta drying rack. You could use a dowel or broom stick over a couple of boxes as a drying rack.

You will also need a pizza cutter and/or pastry cutter for cutting the pasta out later. I knife would work, but not as easy.

Start with the pasta first - by dumping the flour right out on a clean counter - believe me, it is easier than using a board. The link to the food network above has a great little video on making pasta you might want to check out.

Crack the eggs right into the centre. Use a whisk or your fingers to beat the eggs into the flour.

 What the dough looks like at this point is a sticky mess - don't worry, it gets better! The dough must be kneaded for 10 minutes. If you are a bread maker, you will find this dough very stiff. Makes for a pretty good workout.

Alternatively, pasta dough can be made in the bread maker. If you are unable to knead dough, this might be a good option for you.

After kneading 2 minutes

After 5 minutes

After 10 minutes

At this point, the dough must rest for 30 minutes.Most people cover with plastic wrap, but if that offends you - you could put it into a floured container, use wax paper, etc.

This is when I started the sauce. This sauce is very simple. Sauté chopped onion until softened, add minced garlic and sauté another couple of minutes. Purée the tomatoes in a blender until smooth, add to pan. Add the tomato paste. Simmer several hours. I didn't need to add salt because salt was added when I canned them. If you are using canned tomatoes with no salt, add salt, pepper and seasonings to taste.

Now is time to make the filling. Sauté sausage and onion until nicely browned. Add sage and nutmeg. Cool slightly and add the parmigiana cheese. When only warm add the egg. Set aside until ready to stuff the ravioli.

This is the point in the post where I have to apologise because I didn't get any good pictures of rolling out dough in the pasta maker.  Really, it isn't that exciting in still pictures anyway. Slice off a small piece of dough - about the size of a quarter of an orange. Flatten it out and lightly flour. Put through the widest setting of the pasta maker. Flour, fold over and put it through again. Do this a few times. Then you are ready to go up to the next setting (#2). Keep feeding in the dough in at progressively narrower  settings. I stopped at #7.  You can hang this up on the pasta rack and continue with a few more pasta sheets. I usually did three or four sheets at a time (and hunks of pasta dough) and hang them up between settings on the machine - that way I don't need to keep adjusting the settings. When I get a few sheets done, it is easier to file.

The easiest way to do ravioli is to put a spoonful of filling with a space in between close to one long end and then fold the pasta sheet over.

Folding over, pressing down at the sides and cutting - super easy. 

 I ended up with 42 ravioli. Not bad. However, I had only used about half of the dough. So, I made some spaghetti for another meal.

Put the ravioli in the fridge until dinner time. You could put the ravioli on just a floured pan, but I used parchment. Don't worry, I reuse my parchment several times (until it is pretty much black from baking). Fresh pasta only needs to cook for about 2-3 minutes, so when dinner time comes, with the sauce ready, it will be a cinch

Now I have to go make some baguettes to go with  this - will post later when I have cooked our dinner.

I admit I am cheating on the baguettes because I am making them in the bread maker (or at least the dough). More pictures soon!





~Update~ Our dinner was a big hit.

The baguettes are always a hit anyways, but as you might imagine, I don't make them often because they are entirely white flour. Not too nutritious. But, fine for a treat.

Recipe for Baguettes

4 cups all-purpose flour

2 tsp instant yeast

1 1/3 cups water

2 tsp salt

2 tbsp sugar

If you are making these in the bread maker, put into the pan in the following order: water, salt, flour, sugar, yeast. Set for dough cycle, remove from pan when finished, punching down. Cut into two pieces. Set one aside. Roll the one half out into a 12x14"  piece and cut in half again. Roll up starting from long edge. Pinch edges and ends to seal. Repeat for rest of the dough. Allow the four baguettes to rise covered in draft-free environment until nearly doubled (30-60minutes). Preheat oven to 400F with pizza or baking stone. Bake baguettes for 10 minutes, brush with beaten egg and water and bake again for 5 minutes.

Lovely. We froze two baguettes for another meal - probably to go with the spaghetti I made with the extra dough.