Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Go Big or Go Home...



As you can see, August has been a slow cooking month. I've been totally consumed with our September cruise and all the preparation leading up to it- swimsuit shopping, boot camp fitness classes to make sure I can fit in the swimsuit, etc. I figured if I was only going to cook one GDL meal this month I better go balls to the walls and tackle a challenging one.

When I hear Spinach and Mushroom Ravioli I think Buitoni in boiling water for 8 minutes, sauce from a jar, voila! But Giada has a different plan. The idea of making my own ravioli from scratch sounded like a daunting task but GDL says it's easy when you use frozen spinach, pre-sliced mushrooms and egg roll wrappers as your pasta noodles. Sure! No sweat!

The mushrooms get sautéed in olive oil until the liquid has evaporated. The thawed and dried frozen spinach gets added to the pan and heated through. This smells delicious and I had high hopes especially after the mushrooms and spinach get chopped in the food processor and combined with mascarpone and Parmesan cheese. But then my egg roll wrappers started curling up on me and refused to stick together with my egg wash mixture. And maybe I should have looked harder for egg roll wrappers rather than spring roll wrappers because the see-through factor kinda through me for a loop.

I warned Jared we might be eating mushroom spinach slop with floating spring roll pieces, said a quick prayer to the pasta gods, and threw about 12 "ravioli" in my big pot of boiling water. The result? Basically mushroom spinach slop with floating spring roll pieces. The ones that did stay together had a slimy texture that I could not stomach. Not sure if it was Jared's unwavering love for me or if the man truly will eat anything but he managed to devour not only his bowl but my practically untouched bowl as well. God bless him.

So while Jared seemed satisfied, I was truly disappointed. This recipe was a lot of work, a lot of dirty pots, pans and utensils, an unpleasant presentation and in my opinion overall kinda nasty. But I plan to redeem myself and attack the most impressive GDL dessert - homemade Tiramisu.

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