I made...

...homemade PASTA! Yep. Actually, I made ravioli's with a butternut squash filing. I would like to say that the meal was beautiful and worth taking a picture of but...it wasn't exactly. The meal was yummy! VERY yummy! My salad of arugula lettuce with roasted carrots, parsnips, and shallots topped with sliced almonds and a shallot vinaigrette WAS beautiful and delicious (I will toot my own horn here in that I followed a recipe well, and will toot Martha Stewart's horn just a little too...you know, since she (or her corporation) created the recipes.) The raviolis were also delicious but...Pretty? Not even slightly. You see. Apparently uncooked, fresh pasta sticks when piled on top of each other. (I read later that you are supposed to lie them in a single layer on a cookie sheet covered in flour. I REALLY need to start reading the WHOLE recipe before hand! lol) Anyways, ravioli's are made on the finest setting on the pasta roller and thus rip very easily. My little raviolis were so pretty, all prepared and stacked high on the plate. Then everything went wrong.

The water was boiling and Jason was being a stud husband and helping me cook by dropping my butternut squash creations into the water. He tried to pick the first one up off the plate and said, "Um, I think they are sticking together!" Well, he was right. The top raviolis were sticking to the bottom ones which were completely ripping open the raviolis...where all the squash filling was. Eventually in pure frustration I grabbed a knife and started hacking up the mass of raviolis. hahaha. Good times. Jason was trying to make me leave the kitchen because he was afraid that at any moment I would have an "Anna Cooking Meltdown". I have no idea why!?! haha. I mean it's not like I have ever flung an uncooked pie crust that was falling apart all over the kitchen in a giant hissy fit... Or jumped up and down crying like a little 2 year old when the chocolate I was melting over the stove was starting to burn (dumb paper-thin pots in Chile!) I don't have a clue why he would want me to leave the kitchen. :)

Well, I'm happy to say that I didn't throw a hissy fit but just said things that wreaked with sarcasm like, "Wow, that's awesome" and "Gosh, don't you love it when you spend 2 hours on something and have it become ruined in a 5 minute period!" BUT folks, I'm here to tell you that though it wasn't beautiful, it was dang good. All we did was top it with some melted butter, shavings of Parmesan, and some sage. I have never had homemade pasta and I LOVED it. It was delish.

The best part is that my meal tonight had almost no preservatives in it or processed sugars. Nada! All fresh veggies, roasted squash, homemade pasta with nothing but flour, egg, and salt, some butter. Good stuff. I'm determined to stick to whole foods and less processed sugars. We won't be perfect because I am married to a man who has the world's biggest sweet tooth but I'd like our meals to at least be cooked with that goal in mind. Oh, and the "Martha" pics of what I made are at the top. My salad looked like that (except I omitted the beets). My raviolis were supposed to look like that!

And...I'm ready to try it again...but maybe with a ricotta filling, or spinach filling...and I will not be stacking them on top of each other any time soon! Oh, and I'm SO wanting the pasta maker attachment for my kitchenaid. It would have made the whole process way easier! :)