Nana's Birthday Dinner

fresh ravioli stuffed with spinach and cheese

It was my mother's birthday on Saturday which meant our annual Thursday night dinner group dinner party for Nana's Birthday was on. Rohan immediately chose to roast a beast on the barbecue, of course. as visions of his rotisserie danced in his head. We've been wanting to try a brine, and so he did.
Using Micheal Smith's guidance he combined 2 cups sugar, 2 cups kosher salt, to 2 gallons of water. To that he added some leftover herbs I had left on the counter - rosemary, thyme, and chives.
We decided to use skin on, bone-in chicken breasts for easier serving to nine diners. The individual breasts probably don't need the full two cups of salt, but they came out plump, juicy, and delicious.
Rohan stuffed the breasts under the skin with our usual mixture of feta cheese, garlic, fresh basil, sun-dried tomatoes, and capers. (Seen here to the right being mixed together, with our three sous chefs looking on...) The heat from the grill tightens the skin around the stuffing, which cooks but doesn't melt and becomes a delicious crumbly topping to each bite of chicken.

After a disastrous first attempt at homemade whole wheat pasta, (which resulted in five, yes five, ravioli at 9:00pm, three of which were fed to the starving teenager, leaving one each for Rohan and I for "dinner" that night) the pasta I made the day of the party turned out beautifully.

I gave up on whole wheat (not for long..) and used a cake & pastry flour. The result was a light, manageable pasta dough.

I added a lot - A LOT - of freshly ground pepper to the flour; the result was mild (to my taste), so in the future I will use even more pepper for the "cracked peppercorn" pasta. (Maybe even some finely ground??)

The ravioli were stuffed with a mixture I dreamed up while thinking about spanakopita. I started with a large onion, chopped, with some green onion and about eight diced garlic cloves. After cooking down the onions and garlic, I then added about six to eight cups of fresh spinach (I don't know how much I actually used, it doesn't really matter...I just used whatever we had) and cooked it down until wilted but with still a fresh green colour.
Remove from heat and let cool.

The cheese (oh, the cheese, mmmm!) mixture was comprised of ricotta, feta, parmesan, mozzarella, and cream cheeses. Again, lots of fresh ground black pepper, and one egg - then the cooled spinach mixture was added, then let to rest in the fridge.

I don't know how pasta dough is made on the counter top alone. Michael Smith makes it look like child's play on Chef at Home, but in our home the egg doth runneth. In my failed first attempt I tried two batches - one which failed because I used a flour that was just too dense. The second was still dense, but palatable (the one that gave us our five-ravioli-dinner). Both failed because I failed to keep the egg in the flour, allowing it to flow across the counter, nearly into the collection of oil oils and vinegars [kitchen make-over]. It was a mess. I gave up and used a bowl for the pasta on the day of the party - it worked fantastically.

fresh ground black peppercorn & cake and flour

Four cups of flour, lots of ground peppercorn, six eggs, and about a tablespoon or two of olive oil, and a dash of salt. Combined, kneaded for fifteen minutes, then let to rest in the fridge for three hours.

I cut it into four equal parts, and rolled each into a thin rectangle about 12" x 8"ish. The spinach and cheese mixture was spooned onto the dough to make ten ravioli:

spinach and cheese filled ravioli

The dough was brushed with water (to help it stick together) then folded over and pinched together: 

 and cut with our new ravioli cutter tool:

 Just before serving they were boiled in salted water for about eight minutes - or until they were all floating:

The sauce was made with fresh tomatoes, garlic, onion, and fresh basil. For this I used nearly a whole garlic - because everything is better with lots of garlic, one small onion, some green onion. This was all diced and softened in some olive oil. I don't know how many tomatoes I used - both Roma and and vine-ripened - ...ten, maybe twelve.

They too were diced and added to the garlic and onions. Salt, pepper, and a little bit of sugar were added, then just before serving - fresh basil, chopped roughly. Yum.

basil in our kitchen window

We also enjoyed fresh garlicky hummus with vegetables and fresh peppercorn breadsticks, a dill and chive dip, rhumaki (bacon makes life better), and salad with dinner. 

Dessert was delicious. Hannah washed and sliced about four pounds of fresh strawberries (testing for poison along the way). She helped make some lemon scones (which sort of flopped but were still good), and of course - vanilla whipped cream. This was all heaped together in dishes and devoured before any photographic evidence could be taken.

A successful meal, a lot of fun, good company, good wine. I look forward to next year's event already.