Total Ravioli Disaster

It was, verifiably, a complete and total kitchen disaster. Food wise, that is, I didn't burn anything down or something like that. And the sad thing is, I had an opportunity to cut my losses at one point, but I kept pushing on, I kept telling myself, better press on. (willy wonka, anyone?)

It all started because Jeff was operating, not on a person, but on computers, or something. I'm still not sure I know what he's doing when he's "operating," all I know is that it's boring for me and we don't get to go have fun. So I decided since I was stuck not having fun, I should make something exciting for dinner. Something that would keep me occupied in the kitchen for awhile and something I haven't made in awhile and something that wouldn't be in the oven for like 3 hours (since it was so humid).

So I browsed recipes for awhile until I decided that I would make homemade pasta. yum! it's not usually that hard, and always tastes delicious. I found a recipe for ravioli that sounded great, and not too hard (the filling/sauce that is), and went to the store to pick up a few ingredients I needed.

I came back and got ready to rock in the kitchen. I had to decide between two recipes, one, which made more dough (and I kind of needed a lot for the ravioli) and was the traditional method (pile of flour, with a well in the middle where the eggs go). The second, which was a smaller batch and used the food processor. I decided to go with the first, even though I KNEW I always seem to have trouble with the flour/egg/well method. I didn't care, I was sure, since I've done it several times and in the end, always worked out, I would have either learned from my mistakes by now or at least I'd be able to pull it out like I had in the past.

So I piled up my flour on my cutting board, made a well, and started dropping eggs in. Three eggs in, two to go. The fourth egg started to break the flour wall and pour down the side, so in a flash of brilliance, I decide (instead of starting to mix in the flour), to add the fifth egg. at which point, you can only imagine what happened, eggs pouring all down the sides of my flour pile, onto the board and down the cabinets. I tried quickly to mix in the flour, but that only made the egg mess move faster, down the cupboards, all over my oven mitts, and started creeping dangerously close to the espresso maker. I called Jeff in to try and help me stop the egg madness, but he was "in the middle of something" - operating I guess.

So the only thing I could think to do was to wrap both my arms around the oozing egg mess to contain it. So I literally laid down on top of the flour/egg pile and put my arms around the eggs that were pouring all over the counter. At which point, I slid the whole mess into the sink. Thank goodness for that under-mounted sink we have, makes for an easy slide.

A few expletives later, I said, well, it looks like we're ordering Indian food tonight. The reason being, I didn't have enough eggs to make another batch and have eggs for breakfast the next morning, plus after a mess like that I wasn't sure I wanted to continue. Jeff said he didn't care what we did, order food, whatever. Then he said we could go out for brunch, so if I wanted to use the rest of the eggs, that'd be ok. And I love brunch, so the idea of going out for brunch the next day gave me the motivation to try again with the dough. So this would have been my out, I could have cut my losses, ordered food for dinner and been happy. But, not wanting to quit on the ravioli, and the prospect of brunch the next day, motivated me to try try try again.

So, after throwing a bunch of egg covered things in the washing machine and hosing down my egg covered arms, I pulled out the recipe for the food processor method. 20 seconds later, I had great looking pasta dough (note to self: NEVER make it by hand again, EVER EVER).

I was rockin' now. I made the filling for the raviolis, cooled it a bit and tasted it. Delicious! dinner was going to be good, I could feel it now.

I busted out the pasta roller attachment for my mixer and started rolling out the dough. I always get impatient with this step, it seems to take forever and I need go go gadget arms because it gets so long. But I kept cutting it in half and pushing forward. I was in the zone. I laid down several pieces I finished and started filling them. One of the problems I've often had when making ravioli is that they explode in the water. So I was trying very hard to get all the air out, but in doing so, the dough was breaking and there were all these holes in them. So I kept trying to patch the holes and keep going.

I'm not sure if the dough was dry and that's why it was getting holes in it, but they were just becoming huge dough balls. ugly huge dough balls.

So I went back and for the second half of the dough I tried to not roll it out so thin, because I thought that might be the problem, and then tried filling them. but they were kind of thick and weird. so with all the patching and different thickness doughs, I had some raviolis that were huge dough balls, some that sort of looked like ravioli but were really thick and then every weird shape in between. some flat, some round, some with 6 layers of dough, some with random pasta dough pieces hanging off of them. but I kept going.

I made the sauce (butter and mushrooms) and dumped the ravioli into gently simmering water. after double the amount of time the recipes said to cook them, I took them out, and some were completely overcooked and some were raw and some had exploded. I tossed them with the butter mushroom sauce, it was an ugly nightmare. more exploded.

Jeff came into the kitchen at this point (there were more expletives) and I said, please let's just order dinner. he insisted that we eat it. especially after the five hours I had spent in the kitchen (it actually wasn't that long, but it felt like it). So I served it up and we sat down. it was not good. it was as though a five year old made us dinner out of play-dough. I guess that's not entirely true, since the filling still tasted pretty good. it just looked like a mess and I felt like a mess, it was still hot and humid and the kitchen was a total mess (I had needed to use practically every piece of equipment, several pots and pans and there was still food everywhere). Jeff ate all of his, and went back for more. I'm pretty sure he was doing it to make me feel better, since I was being a crab-apple, but I can't be sure.

I have vowed to never make my own ravioli again. I will make pasta dough for lasagna or fettuccine or something and I'll make ravioli filling and make them with won-ton wrappers or something, but the combination of the two is a complete disaster, and I am done with lying in piles of eggs on my Saturday afternoon.