Since I think mom was planning on getting the same thing, I thought I'd throw out some tips I learned through the process.
- Every time I have made pasta following the recipe for pasta dough in the owner's manual thingy, I have found I needed to add more water. As in, it calls for 1 tablespoon, and I've added closer to 1/2 cup. If you read the manual, it will tell you to test (and how to test) the dough after the step with the flat beater. If you follow that test, you should get a good dough. But you'll probably need way more water than what it says you need.
- If you're using the KitchenAid Pasta Roller attachment, go all the way to the 4 setting (so, start at 1, then 2, then 3, then 4). I couldn't find anything in the Ravioli maker manual that said that, but John found it in the roller manual. 3 is TOO THICK. It will get stuck in the ravioli attachment and is not fun to clean when you discover this. Especially if you decide to skip the step that says "if this is your first time, try rolling it through without any filling".
- Which leads me to - follow that step. Do a test ravioli strip w/o filling before putting the filling in
- I floured both sides of my sheet of pasta before putting it in the ravioli roller thingy. I don't know if this was necessary. It was kinda hard to do without deforming the sheet of pasta. It's very important that the sheet remains as wide as the roller. Some of my got thinned out a bit when I was flipping it to flour both sides, and so in those points, the raviolis didn't close completely on one side, so those raviolis had to be tossed. Oops!
- I made the Pumpkin Sage ravioli, and there was not enough filling for all the raviolis. Almost, but not quite.
- They suggest you let the raviolis dry for 10 minutes before you separate them. I suggest you wait a little longer. This can be worrisome because the pasta has raw egg in it, but it does make it much easier to separate - they ones that had been sitting out the longest for me just fell apart easily, while the "fresher" ones kinda stuck/pulled more.
Overall, it was a learning experience, especially with the first roll or two, but I'm very, very happy with it, and am looking forward to making more! It's quite a process, though. Especially cleaning up.
Since I can't really have a post without photos, and I don't have any of the ravioli-making process (yet), I'll continue with Christmas, but now over at E's house. The photos are all kinds of out of order, I apologize. But you should probably be used to that at this point.
Emma!
On E's tree
Mary
Katie
This is a great quilt that Emma got
She likes it!
Waiting her turn
Andrew
Emma and her E
Dad and his hat
Emma and her hat!
I only have ONE more set of Christmas photos to go (and they are mostly of Emma in that incredibly cute red sweatshirt with the fuzzy hoodie). I said I was going to finish those by February, didn't I? Hmmm... expect another post soon, I guess!?
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