Confession: I did use a recipe for the pasta. I'm not nearly that good. The recipe I used to use was in the Joy of Cooking, but it has eggs, and I didn't want to mess around with substitutions. A quick google search for "vegan fresh pasta recipe" turned up this. It worked well, so I'm using it again. It allows for quite a bit of variation in ingredients and method, but the ingredients I used are as follows:
1 2/3 cups flour
1/2 cup soy flour
1/2 t salt
2/3 cup water
1 T olive oil
The directions were pretty standard, and I used a food processor to speed it up. Mix the dry ingredients, then add the water and oil with the processor running. When the dough forms a lovely sticky ball, take it out and let it rest in a plastic bag for ten minutes.
Meanwhile, I got the tomato sauce started. Boil some water, add the tomatoes, let them cook for about thirty seconds, then plunge them into ice water to stop the cooking. When they're cold, pierce the skin and watch in amazement as it falls right off. This was especially fun with my brand new ceramic paring knife. A few basil leaves and cloves of garlic also had the privilege to be sliced and diced by that elegant white blade. Heat some olive oil in a pan, add the garlic, cook for a minute or so, then toss in the tomato and basil. Cover and try not to forget about it.
The problem we had with the ravioli last time was that the pasta was way too thin. I had remembered reading that you should roll it out as thin as possible, but forgot that ravioli should be thicker. This time, I made six sheets instead of eight, and it seemed to work well. I absolutely adore my ravioli press; it works beautifully. I rolled out each sheet until it fit the press, laid it on top of it, filled it with about a tablespoonful of filling, and laid another sheet on top of it. A few swipes with the rolling pin, and I had twelve plump gorgeous ravioli ready to go. I don't remember exactly what was in the filling, but I do remember it had tofu, basil, tomatoes, and artichoke hearts.
Once they were all ready, I boiled some water, and added ten, enough for me for tonight. One important thing with ravioli is to make sure that the water isn't actually boiling, just simmering, so the ravioli don't come open. They took a surprisingly short time until they were all floating and "pillowy," the word that always seems to come up when describing finished ravioli.
Against my own advice, I did forget about the sauce. By the time I remembered, it wasn't ruined, but I had to add more water and oil than I would have liked. Regardless, it looked great with the ravioli.
Review: Overall, it was a decent meal. Nothing was perfect, but nothing was bad, either. The weakest element was the sauce. The flavor was too strong, and overwhelmed the ravioli. The ravioli itself wasn't bad at all, and would have been better if it was just with olive oil or something. Good thing I have thirty or so left in the freezer. The only problem was that the pasta was very slightly too thick. So. 6/10.
One other realization: If the pasta is too tough to roll out, let it rest for a while. That's especially important with the scraps of dough, which have already been rolled out a couple times. If you try to roll them out right away, you'll never get it thin enough, so just go away for a while.
