FamilyFun Holiday Challenge: Day 4 Squash Ravioli With Herbed Sauce

I'm sorry that I have fallen behind in posting about the 62 Days of FamilyFun Holiday Challenge.  Digital Man wiped our hard drive this weekend, so I didn't have the use of my computer for a few days. I'm back now with a faster running computer and couple of catch up posts.

I was really excited for today's challenge "Squash Ravioli With Herbed Sauce" because I love squash, raviolis, and cooking with my kids.

My favorite way to cook and prepare most squashes is to steam them in the microwave.  Then I scoop out the cooked flesh, and add butter and brown sugar to taste. With spaghetti squash, I also cook it in the microwave, but I serve it the same way I would pasta with marinara sauce, ground turkey or sausage, and mozzarella cheese. Yum!

I followed the recipe's instructions to pour the egg mixture into a flour mound.  It was a total mess!  Egg mixture leaked out of the well and all over the place making it difficult to "gently incorporate the flour into the egg mixture, a small amount at a time". I am not a professional chef, but this seemed like a difficult and messy way to make the ravioli dough.  If I make raviolis again, I am totally using my mixer with the dough hook.

The dough was really tough to roll out. Both Robo Dude and Cyber Princess took a turn trying to roll out the dough, but it was way too hard for them to roll out successfully.  In fact, during the process my arms got so tired that I had to ask Digital Man to take a turn rolling the dough.

The kids loved helping cut out the raviolis. That was their favorite part!  I filled and sealed the raviolis with the squash mixture.  I totally changed the sauce though. When I went to the grocery store this week, I forgot that I was out of butter, and I got mixed up and bought basil instead of sage.  So I made an olive oil and basil sauce.

So what was the verdict?  Cyber Princess rated the taste of the raviolis a 2 out of 5 and Robo Dude rated them a 3 out of 5.  They both thought that the process of making them was more fun than eating them giving the cooking process a 4.

Even Digital Man and I were not impressed by the flavor of the raviolis. Honestly, the butternut squash ravioli that you can buy at Costco taste better.

It took over 3 hours to make the ravioli so, I was really disappointed in the results.  If I am going to invest 3 hours in the kitchen, I expect something that is mouth-wateringly delicious. The change in sauce wasn't the problem either, the butternut ravioli was just bland and blah.

The next time I make ravioli, it will not be this recipe.  Also, I am wondering if I could use won ton or egg roll wrappers to speed up the process?