Homemade Sausage and Spinach Ravioli with Chunky Vegetable Sauce

This weekend was Chuck's 28th birthday (look at her, she's so old!)... in honor of her, I made an attempt to recreate a favorite dish of hers that she frequently orders at Vapiano: ravioli con carne with fresh vegetables and a creamy tomato sauce.

My interpretation is very loose, of course. I did fresh homemade pasta with my Kitchenaid roller, and filled it with spinach and Italian sausage per this recipe (although I used half a bag of frozen spinach rather than fresh). Tim helped in the assembly line by making the filling and fork-pressing the edges of the ravioli (and he served as clean-up crew). Good work, Tim! I was proud that only one of 32 raviolis spewed its innards into the cooking water...

My sauce was a simple, chunky, and veggie-filled- chopped onion, minced garlic, cubed eggplant, carrot matchsticks, diced Roma tomato, a tablespoon of pesto, a splash of cream.

We following up the meal with a chocolate pudding cake as the birthday cake. Chuck threw it together while I finished the sauce. Yes, I forced her to make her own birthday cake, but at least it was the world's easiest birthday cake. It was delicious, just like last time. However, one cautionary note: do not attempt to insert birthday candles into a pudding cake recently retrieved from the oven. Waxy puddles will ensue. Not my sharpest moment.

Sautéed Polenta with Sausage and Mushroom Sauce

Dudes, this pan-fried polenta recipe is good stuff. The typically reliable Alton Brown brings us a good go-to recipe yet again. The method seemed somewhat unorthodox, starting it out on the stovetop and finishing it in the oven, but it worked quite well. The polenta was creamy and delicious!

Grilled on my cast-iron griddle, topped with a sausage and mushroom ragu, and sprinkled with some grated Parmesan... mmmm.

Grilled Pizza

Last year, I was making some great pizzas, but in the process I was testing the oven's ability to handle extreme temperatures, bumping it up to 500 or 550 degrees, smoking myself out of the house and cracking baking stones left and right.

This year I decided to try a new method in the hopes that it would be easier on my cooking equipment and my nostrils... grilled pizza! I used this dough recipe from the Other Martha, and grilled it inside on my cast iron grill pan. it was really easy and really tasty. I rolled it super thin and it crisped up quite nicely. Still some smoke, but no cracked cookware!

Topped it with sauteed sweet cherry tomatoes, garlic scapes, mushrooms (all from the CSA), as well as some Italian sausage, mozzarella and basil.

Pasta e Fagioli

Soup, there is it! Girls, what's my weakness? SOUP!

It got cold out of nowhere here in DC this weekend and I had purchased a fancy baguette that begged to be dipped into something warm, so we decided to make some soup. Pasta e fagioli (a bean and pasta soup) to be precise.
I used this recipe, with a few tweaks, which turned out quite well. I threw in some collard greens in place of the spinach, used 5 sausage links, and used one 19-ounce can of beans. Also, to give the broth some additional flavor, I dropped an old Parmesan rind I had in the fridge. Finally, I didn't bother with blending the tomatos- I just crushed them in my hand as I put them in the soup.

Delicious and quite easy!