Fresh Pasta = good

I made pasta yesterday, of the spinach and ricotta variety. The recipe was one I found in a cookbook I have entitled "Truly Madly Pasta". I haven't found the exact recipe online, but the four or five I looked at are all reasonably similar. I took a bag and a half (10 oz bag) of baby spinach and washed them, and put them in a pot with just the water still clinging to them from the washing. Put on the lid, turned up the burner to medium for 5-8 minutes, and the spinach was cooked. Then I let that drain for an hour in a colander and tried squeezing it between two matched plates to get excess water out. I don't know how successful that was. Maybe next time I'll just use my hands so I can feel if it's still too wet.

Then I chopped up the spinach and threw in a couple good-sized spoonfuls of ricotta, some kosher salt and grated some nutmeg on it. I got my nutmeg this past winter in Grenada - gotta love getting it right at the source!

Then I made the pasta. I use the recipe for egg pasta in my Stand Mixer Bible cookbook. It's just 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour, 4 eggs and a tsp salt. After letting that sit for half an hour I rolled out small sections of it. I rolled it to 6 this time instead of 5 so it was a little more delicate.

I let the rolled-out sheets dry just a little on the counter before filling them. I dropped small spoonfuls into the middle of each long sheet, wet the edges and the middle of the sheet and folded it in half, also pressing together in between the mounds of filling. I then made the mistake of taking them off the counter to clean it and putting all the pasta into the colander to await cooking. They were a bit wet and many of them stuck together. I won't make that mistake again.

I made a tossed salad while the water for the pasta heated up. Fresh pasta doesn't need to be boiled long - I think it was in there maybe 3-4 minutes tops. One of the raviolis exploded in the water. Actually I was surprised it was only one of them.

The sauce I used needs a bit more work I think. I toasted some pine nuts then removed them from the pan. Added half a stick of butter and melted that til it was nutty brown and added some sage. I would have liked to use fresh sage but I had none in the house.

It turned out pretty good, although I had hopes for better. For dessert we finished up the hazelnut ice cream I made last week.

Today is Cinco de Mayo, and I have cochinita pibil in the crock pot.