Every year, the women in my family get together in mid-December to make ravioli for our traditional Christmas Eve dinner (to go with a roast - the ravs are the first course). We use our traditional Carignani family recipe, doubled for extra ravs. This year, cousin Paul joined us for the first time and can now boast that he knows just how to roll pasta out to a perfect 5! We also took the opportunity to celebrate Sue's 60th birthday, since she'll be in the Galapagos on the 22nd, and surprised her with champagne, cake & candles and the birthday song at the end of our traditional lunch. It was a perfect day. When we were close to making the last of 665 ravioli, we broke into Christmas carols, with spot-on harmony (marred only by our laughter at the height of O Holy Night, when our collective enthusiasm and volume was suddenly VERY funny).
The lunch table - we sit down for lunch after the dough and fillings are made, while the dough rests. After lunch is when we make the pasta and put the ravs together.
Sylvia greets our morning guests.
Paul, Katie and Sue grind the meat in the Kitchenaid grinder, a huge timesaver compared to the hand grinder passed down through the generations. I guess we're taking ravioli making into the 21st century!
We use every nook and cranny in my kitchen - this is one time when the double sinks are put to good use!
Michelle makes the pappa - a bread, milk and cheese mixture that is added to the ground meat to make the rav filling.
Adding pappa to the ground meat.
Sylvia was a dream all day - it was great to see her handed from woman to woman - that's the way babies were meant to be raised, by a village!!!
Making the pasta dough is one of the toughest jobs - we've doubled or tripled the recipe, so there's just a lot of flour and egg to combine, plus you have to knead it until it's "soft as a baby's bottom." We were tempted to put our dough to the test by comparing it to Sylvia, but she was sleeping....
Linda making dough.
Starting to form dough into sections.
Sue and Katie knead in small batches.
Paul was a fixture at this machine and did a fantastic job turning out sheet after sheet!
His mom Michelle was our other pasta maker.
After layering the molds with two sheets of pasta and spoonfulls of filling in between, Carol (above) and Linda (below) use rolling pins to press the ravs.
Linda with a mold full of new ravs.
With 665 ravs, we filled my dining room table and two counters in the kitchen! With just 16 people at Christmas Eve dinner, that should be PLENTY!
The lunch table - we sit down for lunch after the dough and fillings are made, while the dough rests. After lunch is when we make the pasta and put the ravs together.
Sylvia greets our morning guests.
Paul, Katie and Sue grind the meat in the Kitchenaid grinder, a huge timesaver compared to the hand grinder passed down through the generations. I guess we're taking ravioli making into the 21st century!
We use every nook and cranny in my kitchen - this is one time when the double sinks are put to good use!
Michelle makes the pappa - a bread, milk and cheese mixture that is added to the ground meat to make the rav filling.
Adding pappa to the ground meat.
Sylvia was a dream all day - it was great to see her handed from woman to woman - that's the way babies were meant to be raised, by a village!!!
Making the pasta dough is one of the toughest jobs - we've doubled or tripled the recipe, so there's just a lot of flour and egg to combine, plus you have to knead it until it's "soft as a baby's bottom." We were tempted to put our dough to the test by comparing it to Sylvia, but she was sleeping....
Linda making dough.
Starting to form dough into sections.
Sue and Katie knead in small batches.
Paul was a fixture at this machine and did a fantastic job turning out sheet after sheet!
His mom Michelle was our other pasta maker.
After layering the molds with two sheets of pasta and spoonfulls of filling in between, Carol (above) and Linda (below) use rolling pins to press the ravs.
Linda with a mold full of new ravs.
With 665 ravs, we filled my dining room table and two counters in the kitchen! With just 16 people at Christmas Eve dinner, that should be PLENTY!.jpg)
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