Homemade Butternut Squash Pasta Tutorial

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I have been working really hard to prevent wasting food and money. I had roasted a large butternut squash and had some leftover. I started to wonder if I could make a beautiful homemade pasta with it? I found this recipe and it was a perfect fit. It looks like this is not something many people do so thanks Just Another Day on the Farm for the inspiration!

Homemade pasta takes time so I thought this might be a great yummy project for my foodie friends to tackle this weekend.

Making the Pasta Dough

I used a food processor to make this but you could do so by hand instead. You need 1 1/2 cup flour, 1 egg, 1/4 cup roasted butternut squash and a pinch of salt. I whizzed it up but as you can see on the right, the dough was way too dry. So I added more butternut squash.

Now it was super wet! But that is OK, I prefer wet dough to dry because I can just keep adding flour when I need to. I put it in plastic wrap and put in the fridge. Let it rest for an hour or so.

Rolling the Dough

I kneaded it a bit and added lots of flour to it. I cut it into a chunk, used my fingers to make a rectangle with it, folded each end towards the middle with the dough floured well and put it through my pasta machine on setting 1 a few times until it came together.

Then I put it through setting 2 and setting 3 which made it longer and longer. I did have to keep flouring it but that is a lot easier to deal with than having it disintegrate on me.

You can see specks of parsley throughout the dough because I had some on my hands. I think it looks pretty!

At this point I cut the dough in half to roll each piece as thinly as I could. I think I got to setting 6.

The Ravioli Filling

The first time I made this I created a four cheese filling for homemade ravioli. This time it was mushroom, cheese and parsley filling bound together with a little egg. I used a small scoop to make 3 mounds of filling on the dough. Note the well-floured cutting board underneath.

I used my fingers to water around the edges of the filling, top with the pasta and do my best to push air out with my fingers. If there is air inside, it could make the ravioli explode. Not good!

I used a juice glass to cut out the ravioli. Fancy, I know!

Again, on a well-floured board I used a fork with floured times to seal the ravioli. I am sure this is not how people normally make ravioli but I was hungry (this takes a long time) and so I just followed my foodie instincts.

Cooking the Pasta

I only brought the water to a quick simmer because if it was a rolling boil they might have opened. But of course then it stopped boiling. Try to get the water to a boil, LOL, and make sure to season the water well with salt. Wait until all the pasta floats to the top, then remove. I used a slotted spoon.

Now I had a hot pan with hot olive oil on the side so when I added the ravioli to it and they got nice and browned. The first time. The second time something went wrong and they absolutely stuck like glue. So… I recommend not trying to saute them. Just put them in a bowl with sundried tomatoes, parsley, fresh Parmesan and salt and pepper drizzled with some olive oil. Fresh pasta is the only time I do not drown food in sauces.

Fettuccine 

The next time I made some (this dough went on forever, I love that!) I slid on the slicing attachment and made fettuccine.

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It had a tendency to stick together even coming through the machine so I had to separate each strand and tossed onto a floured surface and added more flour on top.

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Absolutely divine and just look at that colour! Tender and melt-in-your-mouth awesome!

Pasta is laborious but you can taste the love in every bite. I do enjoy all pastas but homemade? Now that is a treat for the weekend that may be devoured in minutes but will be remembered happily.

You made it and with squash so it will is healthy and delicious right? So feel less guilty and eat more! That’s my foodie philosophy!