Pasta-Licious!!

Hello & Happy New Year to all!! I'm going to start doing something a little different. Once a month I will be doing a posting a themed series of recipes on Vmeals.net. . This month we are going to keep it simple and do 3 different pasta dishes. The first dish I made was Blackened Salmon Ravioli (Yeah I made it from scratch) served in a Lemon Caper Cream Sauce. Sooooo freaking amazing!! The second dish will be my Cajun Turkey Lasagna and last but definitely not least I will be making a vegan spaghetti. I can't wait to blow your mind. Have a great week!

Lemon Caper Cream Sauce

1tbls unsalted butter

1 medium shallot, peeled & minced

2tbls drained capers

1/4 cup lemon juice

1/4 cup heavy whipping cream

2 tbls chopped parsley-garnish

Melt butter, sautee shallots & capers till tender (2-3) minutes, add lemon juice and cream

Pasta Dough

2 1/2 cups of all purpose flower

1tbls Kosher Salt

4 large eggs

1 tbls EVO

Place flour and salt in a mixing bowl and whisk to combine. Make a "WELL" in the center of the flour mixture and add eggs and oil in the middle. Gently incorporate the edges of the flour into the egg and oil mixture. When pasta is thoroughly mixed dump your dough out on a lightly flour dusted surface and knead the dough until smooth and flexible but not sticky. (5 to 10 minutes)

To roll dough, secure a pasta machine to the edge of a long countertop. Using a bench scraper, cut the dough in half and then half into thirds you should have 6 pieces of pasta dough. Take one piece of dough and cover the rest in plastic wrap.

Flatten the piece of dough into a rectangle so that it will fit inside the pasta machine, Place the rollers on the widest setting and roll the dough through the machine, catching it with one hand as you roll with the other.

Take the dough and fold into thirds towards the center of the dough. Turn the dough so one open end faces the machine and roll it through on the widest setting again. Fold, turn and roll once more on the widest setting. The dough is now ready to be rolled thinner.

Adjust the rollers to the next smallest setting. Roll the dough, without folding. Repeat adjusting the rollers to the next smallest setting, until pasta is less than 1/16-inch thick. If the pasta sheet becomes too large to handle use a bench scraper to cut in half.

Dust two baking sheets with flour and arrange pasta sheets on top. Cover with plastic wrap or a clean towel. You should have 6 thin sheets ready to fill to make ravioli.

Salmon Filling

1tbls Olive Oil

1 tbls unsalted butter

12 oz Cooked Salmon (I used some salmon scraps I had left over from fresh salmon)

1/3 cup ricotta cheese

1 large egg

1 tbls chopped parsley

I used 2 tbls of blackening season to season salmon before I cooked it.

Season and bake salmon, then flake and let it cool, next add all the other ingredients and put 2 teaspoons of mixture on sheet of ravioli.