Roasted Butternut Squash Ravioli with a Sage Brown Butter Sauce

I had success with homemade ravioli! A few things I learned...make sure you have plenty of time to make this. Make the filling ahead of time and then you should be good to go for the rest of the recipe. I would say you need about 2 hours of prep time in all. (that includes roasting the butternut squash, preparing the pasta and letting it dry and assembly of ravioli)
This recipe is restaurant quality and I will definitely be making it again...the family LOVED it!

9 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons minced shallots
2 cups roasted butternut squash puree
Salt
Freshly ground white pepper
3 tablespoons heavy cream
3 tablespoons grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, plus 2 ounces
Pinch nutmeg
1 recipe pasta dough, rolled out into wide ribbons, about 1/4-inch thick
12 fresh sage leaves
1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh parsley leaves

In a large saute pan, over medium heat, melt 1 tablespoon of the butter. Add the shallots and saute for 1 minute. Add the squash puree and cook until the mixture is slightly dry, about 2 to 3 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Stir in the cream and continue to cook for 2 minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in 3 tablespoons cheese and nutmeg, to taste. Season with salt and pepper. Cool completely.

Cut the pasta ribbons into 3-inch squares. Place 2 teaspoons of the filling in the center of each pasta square. Bring 1 corner of the square to the other, forming a triangle and seal the pasta completely. Add the pasta to pot of boiling salted water. Cook until al dente, about 2 to 3 minutes or until the pasta floats and is pale in color.

Remove the pasta from the water and drain well. Season the pasta with salt and pepper.

In a large saute pan, melt the remaining 8 tablespoons of butter. Add the sage to the butter and continue to cook until the butter starts to brown. Remove from the heat.

Place some of the pasta in the center of each serving plate. Spoon the butter sauce over the pasta. Sprinkle the 2 ounces of cheese over each plate and garnish with parsley.

Home-grown salad greens

I planted five very short rows of mixed Mesclun greens. Tonight I was able to harvest my first salad!

We had a huge bowl!

Mixed with some store-bought tomatoes, cuke and red onion for a very simple, yet very fresh and tasty salad!

If you have a small area to plant some fresh greens...I highly recommend trying the mixed Mesclun greens. For the small cost ($1.00) of a couple of seed packets, you can harvest so much. I will be picking lettuce for quite a while before the leaves get bitter and start to go to flower.

This first salad was amazing! I hope you can try fresh Mesclun leaves from your own garden someday. It's a satisfying thing to be able to go out in your own yard and pick a salad.
*my cherry tomatoes will be a perfect addition to the salad in about a month, I hope!!

What is Mesclun, you ask?

Mesclun (French pronunciation: [mɛsˈklɛ̃]) is a salad mix of assorted small, young salad leaves which originated in Provence, France. The traditional mix includes chervil, arugula, leafy lettuces and endive in equal proportions, but in modern iterations may include an undetermined mix of fresh and available lettuces, spinach, arugula (rocket, or roquette), Swiss chard (God's Breath), mustard greens (Dijon's Child), endive, dandelion, frisée, mizuna, mâche (Lamb's Lettuce), radicchio (Italian Spinach), sorrel, and/or other leafy vegetables.

The Disaster

Let me tell you about the time I completely failed in the kitchen....my grandiose plan of making Lobster Ravioli went badly and I ended up making a batch of lumpy linguine with cold lobster chunks scattered across the top....YUM. (not really)

I had started to take a few pictures to document my success...but then in my disgust of failure, I deleted them all!

Let me give a word of advice here....plan ahead. Make sure that whenever you plan to cook something new and unfamiliar you read the recipe through first, gather all the ingredients needed and give yourself the right amount of time to complete the process. I pretty much failed to do all three things. I WAY underestimated the time I would need which caused  the demise of the promise of homemade Lobster Ravioli!  

Aah well,  we live and learn.  I will be attempting to make ravioli again...but not too soon (ha ha)...and I will be documenting it and posting for your enjoyment.