Butternut squash and ricotta ravioli

Homemade pasta... it can be daunting to think about but once you start, you wish you did it every time. I am by no means a good pasta maker but I love the taste, the texture and the sense of satisfaction I get from making it.  You can't compare it to store bought or packet pasta - fresh pasta is incredible and worth every minute.  It's harvest time here so I thought we should make something festive and full of Fall.  Over the weekend I had my youngest daughter helping me, and together we had a really fun time.  I didn't worry about presentation or quality control for this exercise and the result was, a beautiful pasta made with a lot of love and care and something the whole family enjoyed sitting down to. Georgia was so keen to do every part of the pasta process, it was fabulous to see. As all the books and cooking shows tell you, the more you get your kids involved in the process the more likely they are to eat it.  Well, I have to say G had an empty bowl that night and I know she's not a big pumpkin fan.  I was well impressed.   My little sous chef. 

For the filling:                                                        For the Pasta:

1/2 butternut squash, roasted                         400g Strong Flour  (or 600g/1lb total flour )

extra virgin olive oil                                      200g Semolina Flour

3 cloves garlic, whole                                    3 Large eggs

sea salt and cracked pepper                           6 Large egg yolks

1 cup ricotta cheese                                      1 tblpsn extra virgin olive oil

1/4 cup shaved parmesan cheese                    pinch of salt

1 tspn maple syrup

Method:
Filling:  Trim, deseed and cut the pumpkin into large chunky pieces.   Roll the pumpkin pieces in a bowl with olive oil and salt and pepper. Roast the pumpkin on a baking tray in a hot oven for approx 30-40mins.  Take a head of garlic, slice the top end off and drizzle with a little olive oil, season with salt and pepper and wrap it in foil.  Roast it alongside the pumpkin.   Once roasted, mash the pumpkin and combine with the other filling ingredients until smooth.

Pasta:

• I mixed the pasta on the bench, for effect mostly, but by all means use a stand mixer with the hook attachment to get the ingredients combined to a certain point.  You will need to knead it by hand as well but it does save a lot of the mess.
• Mixing dough: stand mixer
• Add your flour to the bowl of the electric stand mixer, with the dough hook attachment. Take out about half a cup of flour, you can always add it in down the track but depending on the size of your eggs, sometimes a little too much flour will cause it to become too dry and hard.  Add eggs, olive oil and salt and mix until fully combined.
• By hand:
• If you are doing this on the bench, then add your eggs to a centre well and begin to mix using a fork to bring it all together slowly.  

• Kneading:
• Take the dough from the mixer and turn it out onto a lightly floured benchtop.  Knead the dough until smooth and you can form a soft ball.  Wrap it in gladwrap and let it rest in the refridgerator for about 2-3hrs if possible.
• Rolling Pasta:
• Take the dough from the fridge and cut it into about 6 even pieces. 
• Press out one piece at a time into a flat disk.  Using a stand alone pasta roller or the pasta roller attachment on your stand mixer, feed the disk through the thickest setting.  Fold over and run it through again, about 3 or 4 times.
• Change the dial down to a thinner setting and run the dough through some more.  Fold and repeat a few times on each setting.  Continue to change the dial down until you reach about setting 3 or your desired thickness.
• Shaping pasta or filling
• Once you get to this point you can use the other settings on your pasta attachment to make plain fettuccine or spaghetti pasta or in our case, we want long flat lengths to fill with butternut squash.
• Cut manageable lengths of pasta, trim the edges and drop teaspoon size amounts of the filling evenly spaced along one edge of the length of pasta.  
• Fold over the top edge and press down in between each teaspoon fillings.  
• Using a knife or pasta cutter, cut between the ravioli to make the individual pieces.  Place on a lined baking tray ready for cooking.

The butternut squash and ricotta filling

To cook:

• Place the pasta in a pot of boiling salted water and cook until al dente.
• In a skillet, heat a good amount of butter until browned and toss cooked pasta through it.  Rip up some fresh sage leaves and roasted pine nuts.
• Serve with extra parmesan cheese.
• We really enjoyed the simplicity of flavors of this dish.  I served it with a fresh baby spinach leaf salad with blue cheese and walnuts which complimented this beautifully.