a pasta machine and some yummy ravioli

When Carl and I first moved into our apartment here at Wymount, a neighbor was moving out and was getting rid of stuff. Our intention was just to buy their dining table that came with a bench, but when we went to their apartment to pick up the furniture - the lady decided she'll GIVE everything she couldn't take with her - TO US. Apparently, she has accumulated lots of stuff in the last 5 years and it wasn't very practical for her and her family to take all of their things to Indonesia. So there - we "inherited" a couple of things (ala TVA style) from our neighbor. 

This thing is one of them. The lady said somebody gifted her a pasta machine, but she's never used it at all. Me - for the longest time I had wanted to learn how to make my own pasta. I like how the Iron Chefs make pasta... it makes me feel like a pro. I was so excited to finally have one. But sadly, the little equipment sat in storage for almost a year - like the lady who used to own it, I never found the time to make pasta... Until now... Lately, we've been trying to do things we've never done together before... we brainstormed and I suddenly remembered my lonely pasta machine!!! 

So we decided to go Italiano and made ravioli for dinner two Saturdays ago (I know, the post is late). I honestly don't know much about making homemade pasta - so I did a little searching and found a very helpful article and recipe. The recipe called for semolina flour but I know I can use regular flour (my little sister had done it before for one of her classes). We didn't have a mixer too, so I kneaded the dough by hand on my table top. Kneading, rolling out, and cutting the dough was quite a work-out, I must say, but Carl was a very good helper, as you can see! 

Meet Carl, the Sous Chef, rolling out the dough a little
bit before running it on the machine

For the ravioli filling, I decided to just make a basic meat filling. (Now that I know how to make pasta for ravioli, I will have yet to improve my filling recipes!). I originally wanted to make alfredo for the sauce, but I didn't have heavy cream and parmesan cheese on hand... so I just made a mushroom sauce fake-out. It turned out pretty good too!

Beef Ravioli in Creamy Mushroom Sauce

 It was a great dinner and we totally felt great about cooking it together and learning something new!