Raviolis d'anniversaire

As everything is closed on Ryan’s birthday here, I prepared his birthday dinner at home this year. We’re spending the day in the train tomorrow so I decided to do it last night so we could enjoy the leftovers today, his real birth day. He’s always looking for new photographic opportunities, so he spent a good chunk of the afternoon taking photos while I was spreading flour all over the house. You would never guess how technical food photography is, and he tried a lot of settings to get to these photos.

The main dish: spinach and ricotta ravioli, all from scratch.



All the ingredients and the preparation are pretty classic, but every step takes a certain time, so along with the rest of the meal I spent most of the day in the kitchen (there are worst ways to spend Christmas day though, I would say).



The hardest step was to close the little pockets of filling without leaving air bubbles and avoiding that the little piles conglomerate.



The first try (below) wasn’t very pretty, but I got the hang of it quickly.



Some precision operating the cutting wheel:



And I let the army of little ravioli dry while I was taking care of the other dishes.



For example, to prepare the wild mushrooms before sticking them in the oven with thyme and olive oil as an antipasti.



And was it good? Oh yes! The ravioli, served with a simple tomato sauce, were the best spinach raviolis I had ever had. The foccacia with sun-dried tomatoes was also fabulous. The roasted peppers with basil-flavored oil are always a success. All this was served with an arugula and pine nut salad, and finished with a grapefruit sorbet, not completely sorbeted but very refreshing. Can’t wait until next year for the next birthday dinner!