If you're like us and avoid restaurants on Valentine's Day, this is the dish for you. This is killer. The beautiful deep magenta color of the pasta just reminded me of Valentine's Day. The filling of goat cheese, Parmigiano cheese and chives is so luscious and creamy. And I thought some toasted chopped hazelnuts on top would add the perfect texture.  The filling is a breeze to make and the pasta dough is just plain fun.

We've been concentrating on homemade pastas this winter and you should add this to your cooking arsenal - making flavored pasta doughs is easy.  If you have a food processor or mixer, it's really easy.  For this pasta, beets are simply roasted in the oven and then allowed to cool.  Pureeing them in the food processor along with the eggs and flour is the easiest way to make this dough.  My favorite way to make pasta dough is to add some semolina flour to the all purpose flour - it gives the dough a little bit firmer texture and bite, which I like. If all you have is all purpose flour, you can make the dough with just that.  

Beet Pasta Ravioli with Goat Cheese, Hazelnuts, Chives

for a printable recipe, click here

makes about 50 ravioli

If you don't need 50 ravioli, this recipe is easily halved, but I suggest you make the full batch and freeze half for later.  

Special equipment that helps: You will need a ravioli mold for this recipe.  Of course, you can assemble these without a mold - it just makes it a lot easier. Also, a small pastry brush, a spider and a fluted plastry wheel are all helpful. 

Ingredients:

for the filling:

11 ounces plain goat cheese
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese
1 tablespoon chopped chives
1 egg
salt and pepper to taste

for the pasta dough:

3 small beets, scrubbed
olive oil
salt and pepper
3 large eggs, room temperature
1-1/2 cups all purpose flour (plus more for dusting)
1/2 cup semolina flour

for the sauce:

2 tablespoons chopped hazelnuts
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup butter  (real butter) 
2 tablespoons chopped chives 

Instructions:

Mix all the ingredients for the filling in a bowl and refrigerate.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.  Line a small baking pan with foil.  Trim the stems and tip off the beets and place on the foil.  Drizzle with just a little olive oil and some salt and pepper and roast for 45 minutes.  Set aside to cool.

Leave the oven on and place the hazelnuts for the sauce on a foil lined baking sheet and toast for just 4 or 5 minutes, just until they are fragrant.  Set aside. 

After the beets have cooled, take a small paring knife and peel off the skins.  Quarter the beets and place in a food processor.  Add the eggs and flours.  Pulse until a ball of dough forms.  Add a little more flour, a tablespoon at a time, until a dough forms that is not dry, but still a little bit sticky. Take the dough out, knead a little on the counter and place on a sheet of floured plastic wrap and wrap.  Let rest on the counter for at least 20 minutes. Take your cheese filling out of the fridge and let the chill come off a little.  

Cut the dough in half and run it through the widest setting on your pasta rollers.  Fold in half and run it through again.  If it is sticking to the rollers, flour it a little. You don't want the pasta too dry but you don't wait it to stick to the rollers.  Adjust the rollers to the second setting and run the pasta through.  Keep running the pasta through, without folding,  until you have run it through the #5 setting.  Don't go past the #5 setting for ravioli - the dough will be too thin and may break during cooking. And don't let your pasta sheets dry, like you do when you make fettuccine or spaghetti - you want them a bit sticky.  Use them right away. 

Lay a pasta sheet out on the counter and place the ravioli mold next to it.  Cut the pasta sheet a little bit longer than the ravioli mold.  You should have 3  - 4 cut sheets from this strip.  Flour the ravioli mold a little. Lay one sheet on top of the mold and gently make indentations into the wells of the mold.  Fill a quart size plastic bag (or a pastry bag with tip) with the filling.  Cut a corner off the plastic bag and pipe the filling into the indentations. Just pipe about a heaping teaspoon of the filling in each well.  With a small pastry brush (or even just your finger), brush a little water onto the dough around the filling so it will be moist and act like a glue.  Lay a second sheet of pasta on top.  Run a rolling pin over the top and invert the mold.  The ravioli will not be separated completely, so use the fluted pastry wheel to cut them.  Place on a floured baking sheet.  Repeat with the remaining dough and filling.

Bring a large pot of well salted water to a boil.  Place a large skillet on your stove.  Warm the olive oil and butter for the sauce in the skillet.  Using the spider, lower half of the ravioli into the water and boil gently, not vigorously, for about 4 minutes.  Lift them out with the spider and place them into the skillet.  Gently toss with the butter and oil and keep warm. Add half of the chives and hazelnuts and toss. Repeat with the remaining ravioli and toss with the butter and oil.  Transfer to a pasta bowl and sprinkle the remaining chopped chives and hazelnuts on top and serve. 

Pasta Making Class

I will be holding an evening pasta making class on Friday, March 9th at my home. Come join the fun and learn how to make fresh pasta!

Please click on the "Cooking Classes" tab in my navigation bar above for the details.

Space is limited.

Pomegranates have become so popular - they're delicious and healthy.  But they can be a pain to deseed, squirting juice everywhere and making a mess.  I'll show you how to easily clean a pomegranate and get all those seeds out.

I'm going to be posting a lot of pasta dishes this winter, so I thought I would give you a nice refreshing, light salad first!  The key to making a great salad is two things:  1) make your own dressing  and 2) only lightly dress the greens.  Salad dressing shouldn't weigh down a salad - it should just lightly coat it.  The greens and the fruit or vegetables should be the star.   The salad should be refreshing, not a soggy mess.  

Well, the holidays are over and what a whirlwind it was.  And so much fun. My brothers and their families came to visit and I did a ton of cooking for that, including an enormous batch of chicken ragu, which I smartly froze ahead of time. That was a timesaver.  I made big pork loins stuffed with one of my favorite stuffings.  I also made Jamie's Peanut Butter Parfaits which were a big hit. We decorated Oreo cookies and I made Cranberry Upside Down Cake. It was all a lot of fun. 

I also got to reveal something that I had kept a bit of a secret all year.  I started a knitting blog last spring but did not talk about it at all here because I couldn't let my family know about it.  In March, I started a big project to knit something for every person in my family by Christmas.  I ended up knitting 17 projects for everyone.  What a thrill it was to finally present them to everyone during their visit. It was hours of knitting and thousands of stitches and lots of tinking, but a whole lot of love knitted into every item. 

I've made these beautiful delicious cranberries for the holidays for a couple of years now, ever since I saw them over on Heidi's blog. These pretty cranberries look like they might be just for decoration, but they're not - they are like eating candy.  I usually put them on my Christmas Eve buffet table.

They're so simple to make but you do need to start them the night before. 

I've been having so much fun with this little DIY project that I had to share it with all of you because I know you will love it, too.  These beautiful "snow" candles are pretty, easy and cheap to make.

These candy cane marshmallows from Martha Stewart would be a nice little DIY gift to give out:

 

I heard from an awful lot of you after I posted "Making Fresh Pasta" last month. Many of you tried making fresh pasta for the first time and I was so happy about that.  I think the video that was in the post showed how easy it was and some of you got out your pasta rollers for the first time.  

As promised, here is a recipe that uses both spinach pasta and plain pasta.  It's a classic Italian dish called "Straw and Hay".  I always love combining two different colored pastas in a dish.  It's delicious with the salty prosciutto, sweet peas and cheese.  

Here is an alternative for Thanksgiving for those of you who either don't want to cook a whole bird or don't have to. In our household, a whole bird is a must but if you want something different for Thanksgiving, here is a delicious alternative.  I also think that turkey white meat is pretty bland and dry and this recipe gives it a lot of flavor and combines the turkey and stuffing in one neat package. 

I'm going to be showing you lots of fresh pasta recipes this next year and I hope you will cook right along with me. Fresh homemade pasta is truly a fun thing to make and has so many creative possibilities.  And you can make it at a moment's notice - who doesn't have eggs and flour in their kitchen?  I've posted about making fresh pasta before, but I wanted to do an update and include a video to show you just how easy it is.  I know when people can see something being made they are more likely to try it.  So the video within this post may inspire you to make the leap!

There is no one correct recipe for fresh pasta.  In Italy, different regions have different ways of making it. Some places only use eggs and flour and others use only water and flour.  Some cooks add a little salt and olive oil, some do not.  You will have to experiment and decide what pasta recipe you like.  How do I like to make mine? I basically make my pasta the way they do in the Emilia Romagna region of Italy - with just fresh eggs and flour.