Blessed are the Ravioli Makers

Making Ravioli has to be a team project with several helpers.

It all starts here with the sauce. The sauce I make is from my Nonna Carmella's recipe. When I was in Gubbio and Tuscany in 1993 the sauce tasted exactly like ours. We brown and simmer pork (optional) chicken and beef in a pot with garlic, onions and celery.

Add the cans of tomatoes (psst - don't tell my cousin Richard that I use canned tomatoes) and cook for several hours. We don't add sugar or wine as called for in some recipes.

#1 son does a very good job at making the pasta. He learned at a young age and took right too it.

Here is a beginner Ravioli maker. She did a great job and just might find a pasta machine as a gift in the near future. The center filling we use is a meat mixture containing the meat from the sauce ( it is so gooooooood), spinach and some nutmeg. Small balls are made and placed on the sheet of pasta. We do the crimping the old fashion way using forks with bent tips.

The magical number is 233! Britt-Arnhild had the nearest guess of 175. This is the finished product laying on the drying towels before going into the freezer. The birthday dinner is set for May 6th. Wish we had enough to share with everyone, alas we would still be making them.

Buon Appetite

Stayed tune for the second half of this story when you will see the Italian birthday party.

Ciao!