Pasta

Because I watch my caloric intake, I don’t often splurge on pasta.  So I figured that if I was going to do it, do it right and make fresh pasta.  First I will give you the pasta recipe and then the mushroom ravioli recipe we made tonight.  It was delicious!    It may seem like a lot of work, but from start to finish was only 1 ½ hours- this included preparing a vegetable to serve with the pasta, some clean up and going out to the greenhouse for some fresh herbs.

Fresh Pasta

1 ½ cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1 cup semolina flour (we used Bob’s Red Mill)

½ teaspoon sea salt

1 cup of water

So the recipe I used says to mix the flours and salt together on a counter or board, make a well in the middle, pour in ½ cup water and mix together with your hands.  I poured in the water and as soon as I touched the flour I had water running off the counter on and to floor.   So I am going to change it up here.

Mix the flours and salt together in a mixing bowl.  Make a well in the middle and with your hands mix in the water.  Add a tablespoon of water at a time until the mixture comes together into a stiff dough.

Move the dough to a lightly floured board or counter.  Knead the dough for 8-10 minutes until elastic and slightly sticky.

Place a kitchen towel over the dough and let rest for 20 minutes.

Roll the dough out (I use a hand crank pasta roller.)  Cut into the desired shape.  Place in a large pot of gently boiling water to cook.  Thin pasta will take 1-3 minutes.  Thicker or filled pasta can take 5-15 minutes.

This makes one pound of pasta.  The total calorie count is 1282.  If you make spaghetti or fettuccini with all of it, it should serve 6 at 213 calories per serving.

The unrolled dough can be wrapped in plastic wrap and refrigerated for 3 days.  Remove from refrigerator about 30 minutes before you want to roll it.  The shaped pasta can be frozen for later use.

Vegan Mushroom Walnut Ravioli

½ recipe pasta dough

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 tablespoon chopped walnuts

1 ½ teaspoons chopped fresh basil

1 ½ teaspoons chopped fresh oregano

For the filling:

1 cup chopped onions

1 cup chopped mushrooms

2 tablespoons Italian seasoned breadcrumbs

¼ cup non-dairy parmesan cheese (I used SoySations)

¼ cup non-dairy mozzarella (I used Daiya)

Fill a large pot with water and a dash of olive oil and bring to a boil while filling the ravioli.

Coat a skillet with olive oil spray.

Sauté the onions and mushrooms over med-high heat until caramelized.

Remove from heat and cool for about 10 minutes.

Place the onions, mushrooms, breadcrumbs and cheeses in a food processor and pulse until it all ingredients are finely ground and hold together.

Roll the dough in a pasta roller.  It works best if your roll it first on a wide setting and then on a thinner setting.  For my hand crank pasta roller, we rolled first on setting 7 and then again on setting 3.  At this point you can hand cut your ravioli with a round 2 inch biscuit cutter or you can use a ravioli maker.

Place 1 teaspoon on the bottom piece of pasta.  Cover with a second piece of pasta and crimp the edges.

I made 18 two inch ravioli.  I don’t re-roll the scraps as they can be tough.  So we used about 1/3 of the recipe of pasta dough to make 18 ravioli.

Reduce the heat on the pot of water to a gentle boil and carefully drop in the ravioli.  These should take 5-6 minutes to cook.  When done, drain quickly and place in a serving bowl.

Add the fresh herbs, I tablespoon olive oil and the walnuts.  Toss gently and enjoy.

This makes two servings at 382 calories each.  This was great with fresh asparagus.

If you want to try a different sauce option, the ravioli without the olive oil and walnuts is 298 calories.

Here is a link to a company that has every kind of pasta roller and ravioli maker. My pasta roller doesn't have a brand name on it, but I can tell you it is a 6 inch roller and I bought it for $19.99 a few years ago.  It works great.  I have a VillaWare ravioli maker- the kind you have to fill each ravioli and then roll over it with a rolling pin to seal the edges.  It was very inexpensive as well.  I used to have a fancy pasta roller that had a ravioli attachment.  I used it unsucessfully several times and gave it away.  It took two people to use it and then you still needed another hand.
So bottom line, it that the bottom of the line pasta roller and ravioli maker work great. 

 http://www.creativecookware.com/pasta_maker.htm

I  will mention brand names in our recipes.I am not paid for advertising, nor do I endorse any particular brand. I simply mention the brands I like and have used in my recipes.