Ravioli, Take One

Well, I just erased my whole blog post somehow.  That is pretty much representative of this evening's pasta experience.  I started out gung-ho, with good intentions, and instead of taking small, measured steps, I flailed around a lot.  But, in all, it was a productive evening.  And it's the way my mind works.

Up until today, I have only been exploring websites, cookbooks, blogs, and videos.  I also bought a pasta maker, a pastry cutter and a ravioli mold. I haven't really engaged with any groups outside of blogs, websites, and friends.  I had lots of advice when I posted my blog on FaceBook, though it mostly involved drinking wine and listening to opera.  Today, though, I had a reasonable chunk of time, so I decided to jump in.  In my head, I had planned to only try making spaghetti the first time, just to get the hang of rolling the pasta and making the dough.  After viewing a video on HandletheHeat.com, though, that made the ravioli process seem not too difficult, I thought I'd stop on the way home from work and buy some filling ingredients.  Once I was at the store, I figured I'd buy some tomatoes and onions, and just make sauce, too, as long as I was making stuff.  A jar of sauce didn't seem right on handmade ravioli.

I procrastinated a bit once home, but finally got started.  Remembering the advice from the video, I made the cheese filling first. 

Then I decided I better start the dough.  It seemed simple enough.  I played the video in my head, while using the Joy of Cooking as a guide.  

Once the dough was done, I left it for a while, as I learned I should do.

Then, I decided I needed some better music, and spent time looking up songs.  This made me think of the students, and how easy it is for them (for all of us) to get off task.  I refocused and looked up a marinara recipe, which called for peeled tomatoes, so I had to look that up.

 By the time I got that process started, it was after 7:00, and I figured my kids would be emerging soon to forage, so despite the many other things happening, I popped a frozen Trader Joe's item in the oven, and got back to my task.   After putting the marinara on, it was time to roll out the pasta.  I was nervous.  But I got started.  It seemed easy at first, but the dough wasn't cooperating as well as the video I had watched.  I kept rolling it through, and had a tiny piece of dough to try to fill, nothing like the video.  But I made two cute raviolis.

I kept at it.  It started getting easier about the time the dough started getting too dry to work with.  One of the teens wandered in and helped me try to make it work.  Finally, the funny shaped, cheese-oozing raviolis were ready for the water.

I cooked them, we ate them, we liked them.  The weren't as easy, or as good, as the ones I get at the grocery, but they were edible!  That's the first step of my goal.  I feel accomplished (and full!) even if the process was messy and not exactly perfect.

Thinking about how this experience connects to this week's learning on creativity and innovation, there are several connections.  First, this experience was totally my own.  Though I had guides, I really decided how I was going to proceed, for example, I decided to fill the raviol and make the sauce from scratch all in one day.  While I sort of knew that was too much, I wanted to try.  I probably would have made better pasta if I had proceeded the way I had planned...First, master the pasta.  Next, move on to the ravioli, then, worry about the sauce.  But, the type of learner I am likes to just go for it, make mistakes, then go back and fix them.  Maybe it's messy, but so am I, and now I have a holistic experience to work from and build on.