I felt inspired the other day as we were cleaning out some things from my mother-in-law’s home and I discovered a very old ravioli wheel cutter. I suspect that it was my hubby’s grandmother’s tool which made it very special for me. Because of that, I decided to give it a go and make some ravioli. Since I had an eggplant and some mushrooms in the fridge that needed to be cooked, I decided to use them for the filling! I was a little worried about how it would work out, but they came out very well, although I have to confess I used pre-made lasagna sheets for the pasta dough instead of making it myself. Still, nom nom. They came out very tasty and I will definitely make them again! P.S. – If you like seeing recipes like these, you can visit my Cook’s Treat section on the website or download a copy of Recipes for the Romantic Soul which contains recipes and excerpts from some of my books. It’s available for free with Kindle Unlimited!
Ingredients
1 medium eggplant, peeled and cut into 1/4 inch slices
1 pound mushrooms, cut in half
3 cloves garlic, chopped
Lasagna/Pasta Sheets (usually available at Italian specialty stores like Pastosa or Uncle Guiseppes)
1 cup ricotta
1/2 cup parmesan
Olive oil (as needed)
Salt and Pepper to taste
Directions
I find that roasting vegetables always imparts a lot more flavor and so I decided to roast the eggplant, mushrooms, and garlic. I roasted the eggplants and mushrooms separately since mushrooms have a lot of water and I didn’t want the eggplant to steam instead of roast. I roasted the garlic with the eggplants.
To roast, preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Toss the eggplant and garlic with oil and some salt and pepper. Place on a greased pan and cook for about 15-20 minutes. Repeat with the mushrooms.
Cool the roasted vegetables until room temperature. Once cool, place it into a food processor and chop until almost like a pate.
Place the eggplant/mushroom/garlic mix into a bowl. Add the ricotta and parmesan and mix.
Layout your pasta sheets. Make sure to keep the sheets you’re not using under damp paper or kitchen towels as they will dry out and be difficult to work if they dry out.
Place around 2 tbsp of filling about 2 inches apart on the pasta sheets. Wet the area all around the filling with water in order to get a good seal. Place a sheet on top of the sheet with the filling and press down to create a seal. Also, try to ease out any air from around the edges since too much air around the filling will cause them to explode in the boiling water. Press down around the edges to seal.
I used a sharp knife to cut the ravioli into squares and then used grandma’s ravioli wheel cutter to seal the edges with that distinctive fluted edge you see on ravioli.
While I was roasting the veggies, I made a quick marinara sauce in a large flat skillet. Why flat? Because I wanted to give a last minute or two of cook to the ravioli in the sauce. Lately I do that a lot with my pasta because I find that it gets a lot more flavor when I finish the pasta in the sauce.
Back to the ravioli! Since it’s fresh pasta, it will cook quickly. Usually only a few minutes. You’ll know when the ravioli rise to the surface. At that point you can remove them and give them those last few minutes of cooking in the marinara sauce.
Remove from the sauce into a pasta bowl. Spoon some sauce over the ravioli and top with fresh basil and more parmesan! Bon Appetit!
