Butternut squash ravioli with butter sage sauce

I love Sundays. The waking-up-lazily-at-11, the excuse to skip straight to lunch, the afternoon nap and, of course, the intensive Sunday dinner. The last few weeks, it seems as though I cannot be happy unless I’m sweating over a hot stove, etc.

Also, my dear friend Katie was coming over to write an article about me for her food writing class, so I had to simultaneously feed and impress her very selective vegetarian palate.

Homemade ravioli fit the bill as sufficiently labor intensive and, ultimately, delicious.

I’ve adapted this recipe to include ricotta cheese in the filling. It’s just not ravioli without ricotta cheese, in my opinion. Actually, it’s just not a meal without cheese, period.

Butternut squash ravioli

Filling
1 medium or 2 small butternut squash, cut in half lengthwise
olive oil
dash of nutmeg
several dashes of cinnamon
pinch of brown sugar
salt & pepper
1/2 cup ricotta cheese

Pasta Dough
2 eggs
1 and 3/4 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 tablespoon olive oil
2 tablespoons water

Butter sage sauce

3 tablespoons butter
8 sage leaves, thinly sliced

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Place butternut squash on a pan with a lip and drizzle with olive oil. Cook for 20 minutes, flip, then cook for another 20 minutes, or until tender.

Meanwhile, mix all pasta dough ingredients in a bowl. Knead for several minutes on a well-floured surface, adding more water as needed. The dough should be smooth and elastic. Wrap the dough ball with plastic and let sit for 30 minutes.

Once butternut squash is tender, scoop out the flesh and stir in nutmeg, cinnamon, brown sugar, salt and pepper. Let cool to room temperature (or place in the refrigerator), then add ricotta.

Once pasta dough has rested, cut ball in half. Cover one half with plastic and roll out the other half with a rolling pin or in a pasta machine. If you don’t have a pasta machine, I hope you have some amount of patience as you’ll be rolling out dough for awhile. I don’t have a pasta machine, so I just kept rolling out the dough until it was “thin enough.”

Cut flattened pasta dough into 2-by 2-inch squares. Place a teaspoon of filling in the center of the square, then fold pasta over to form a triangle. Seal the dough around the edges with your fingers. Have a bowl of water nearby to moisten your fingers as the dough dries out. Set uncooked ravioli aside. Repeat process with other dough ball.

Boil a pot of water while preparing the butter sage sauce. To make the sauce, melt butter in a large skillet over medium heat, then add sage. Add ravioli to pot of boiling water and cook for about 5 minutes, or until soft.

Drain ravioli and add to the skillet. Coat the ravioli with butter, place on a plate, then sprinkle with Parmesan cheese.

Meghan Prichard blogs at nestMeg.

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