Homemade Ravioli: Butternut Squash

So I have been going through my freezer and found some butternut squash I had prepped this winter and frozen. I dont know about you, but I LOVE butternut squash. I make all kinds of things with butternut squash. My most popular is I think my butternut squash and leek soup. But I think after that is my butternut squash ravioli. I have only made it once, but my neighbor Amy adored it and told me we had to make it again before we left and moved. So I finally relented. And when you see the long process you will understand. But....in the end it is worth all the effort. But then I told another friend what I was making and she wanted some too. So she and her two kids came along with my neighbor and her youngest two kids. So it was a pasta making party. Which, if you are making homemade pasta is how it should be I think! It's a lot like tamales. You never want to make tamales by yourself because of the time and intensity of the process.

So I decided today I would make two different types of ravioli. I was going to make a basic dough but use butternut squash in the pasta instead of my liquid. The first one was a butternut squash, ricotta, and sage filling with a brown butter sage sauce. Then in case people didn't like the butternut squash I would make a chicken, mushroom, spinach, and mozzarella ravioli with a light garlic cream sauce.

So I suppose lets start with the pasta dough.

Recipe:
1 medium butternut squash, peeled and cubed.
3c flour
1 egg, beaten

Once your squash is peeled and cubed it can be frozen and used later or used fresh. But place cubes in a large pot of salted boiling water and cook about 10 minutes or until soft, like making mashed potatoes. Drain off the water and place squash in a food processor. Blend until completely smooth.

In a large bowl place flour. Add about 2/3 to 3/4 of the cooked squash mixture to the flour along with the egg. Mix together well. If dough is sticky and too wet, add some flour until dough is not sticky anymore. Knead dough to get all the pieces to come together. Form into a ball and place in greased bowl. Place a towel of the top of the dough to keep it from drying out and let it sit at least 15 minutes before making pasta.

Using a pasta machine to make the dough. I am going to explain the steps to you, but if you have a pasta machine or decide to start dabbling in homemade pasta it will come with a set of instructions. But take your dough and cut or pull into small baseball sized balls. Cut those in half. If the dough is still too much to handle, cut in half again. Make sure you have plenty of flour around you. Flour the board, the machine, your hands and your rolling pin. Also have some baking sheets at your work station and flour those as well. If you are making a lot of ravioli, like we did last night, it is a good idea to have some parchment or wax paper next to you as well so when you fill up the bottom portion of your baking dish you can place some paper of the top and keep making more ravioli.

Take a small piece of dough, whatever you are not using immediately make sure you keep covered with a towel so it doesnt dry out, and lightly roll out the dough with your rolling pin. It doesn't have to be too thin....that's what the pasta machine is for. Once you get it about a half inch thick you can start with your machine. It is easier to have two sets of hands, but one can work...just take your time.

 Place your pasta machine on its highest setting. Mine happens to be 7. Run your dough through the machine once. Then to make sure you have it evenly I like to run it through one more time on 7. At this point you can go by two's on your machine. So I place mine at 5 and roll it through the machine again. Then go down to 3 and roll through once more. This is where I stop. Any further down and the dough is too thin and hard to work with. Lay your newly rolled out piece of dough on a baking sheet lined with flour. If the strip is too long to fit your sheet, cut in half. Continue to roll out dough until you either finish your dough or have enough that you want to stop.

*If you have lots of people over to help you, you can give the other people the dough strip and continue rolling out dough while they fill, cut, and pinch. If you are alone, place on the baking sheet and cover with a towel until you are ready to fill them.


Butternut Squash Ravioli:
2c ricotta cheese
3T chopped fresh sage
remainder of your butternut squash, about 1/2c
salt and pepper

In a medium bowl combine cheese, squash, sage and salt and pepper. Set aside until ready to use.

Now you must be ready to start the filling process. I find that the one strip of rolled out dough is a little too big for ravioli. So we take a ravioli cutter or pastry cutter or a sharp knife and cut the dough in half. Place your ricotta filling inside a piping bag or if you don't have a piping bag, a ziploc bag with the end cut off works just as well. Squeeze out your filling onto your dough in small circles all along the dough. Leave about 1/2-1 inch in between circles.

Now carefully place your other half a strip of dough over your filled side of dough. Carefully stretch top piece if it is too short to match up with the bottom piece. Gently press together the dough seams between the filling. Taking your ravioli cutter, cut the end off the ravioli and in between each blob of filling creating single pieces of ravioli. Then using a fork or your fingers press together the edges of the ravioli so they don't come undone in the pasta water when cooking.

Place individual ravioli on a floured baking dish and do not cover with a towel unless you are making this solo. It makes for easier cooking if they are dried out a little. Set aside until all ravioli are made and you are ready to cook.

Brown Butter Sage Sauce:
1-2 sticks of butter
1T chopped fresh sage
pepper and salt to taste
2-3T olive oil

Place one stick of butter in a skillet over medium heat. Melt butter and continue cooking. Add the sage and salt and pepper. Butter will foam up. Once the foam dies down the butter starts browning. Let the butter brown for about a minute or two. To stop the browning process, add 2-3T of olive oil to the butter. Cook on very low heat to keep warm.

Meanwhile fill a large pot with salted water and bring to a boil. Gently add a few ravioli at a time into the water. Cook for 2-3 minutes or until the pasta is cooked through and tender. This is hard to tell how to do. You will have to practice looking at the color of the pasta and the consistency to know when is best for you to pull them out of the water. Using a slotted spoon or skimmer, pull pasta out of boiling water and let the water drain briefly. Place immediately into the brown butter sauce and cook another minute or two, making sure to get sauce on both sides of the ravioli. Pull gently out of sauce and into a warm platter or bowl for serving. Continue to cook pasta and sauce them until there is no more.

If your butter sauce is almost gone, use the second stick of butter and repeat the sauce process.

Top hot pasta with freshly grated parmesan. If you are being fancy you can even flash fry whole leaves of sage and use as edible garnish.

These little things tasted like heaven. They were delicious. But of course you need to like butternut squash to enjoy them. Everyone at my house enjoyed them. Even some of the kids! They were worth all of the effort once you got one that just melted into your mouth.