Adventures in Cooking

For some reason, I wanted nothing to do with cooking when I was a kid.  Maybe it was because my Mother was known as the neighborhood gourmet and I didn't like the competition.  Anyway, I missed out on valuable lessons from her.  A couple I remember, like adding cream cheese to mashed potatoes to make them smoother, and using a pastry blender to break up hamburger while it's frying.  The last couple of years, I've started teaching myself the basics, and this week it was all about learning how to make fresh pasta.  I got a small tabletop pasta machine, a ravioli maker, and a drying rack and went to it.  Last weekend it was learning how to make the dough, kneading the dough, and using the pasta machine to make spaghetti and fettucine. 

This week, I tackled ravioli.  The pasta dough is exactly the same, and I still had to roll the pasta out nice and thin using the pasta machine.   The fun part was deciding what to stuff the raviolis with.  I couldn't decide, so basically used leftovers.  Italian sausage, spinach, mushrooms, olives, and garlic all went into the mix.  

And, because my company is starting a health challenge tomorrow, where we get points for eating fruits and veggies everyday, I decided to also make a nice green bean salad to take me through the week.  The grocery store didn't have fennel, so I substituted jicama, and I forgot to buy almonds, so I substituted walnuts.  The pickled red onions are to die for!