Christmas Ravioli

Making fresh pasta by hand makes me happy. Whenever I feel less than great, all I need is some flour, eggs, salt and olive oil. These Ravioli took all day and my arms feel like I lifted weights. So worth it though. If I did this every week, I'd look like Popeye. Now I understand why all the real Italian Nonnas I knew looked like they could take anyone in an arm wrestle, they could!!
They didn't need a pasta machine, so I don't either. I love the old ways of doing things.
I just read "The Lost Ravioli Recipes of Hoboken" by Laura Shenone.
What a fun read! Part novel, part recipe book.
Happy New Year, everybody!

Last week Jackie and I went up to Richmond, Utah. Richmond is a little town just north of Logan. We were invited to Rockhill Creamery, where we spent a good part of a day making cheese with Jennifer. I will never look at cheese the same way again. We had such a great time, hard work making cheese, but great. Jackie and I hardly ever have a chance to spend much time together anymore.

Rockhill Creamery has 6 beautiful Swiss cows they affectionately call "the girls". A couple of them just had calves, so we got to go meet them too, so sweet. After making cheese, we smelled like milk and they really liked us. They are making beautiful cheese in very small batches. I have been truly inspired! I have made several recipes with their cheeses this week, all delicious. I have to say though that my pasta carbonara with the Zwitzer has been my favorite...so far. I still have a few things in mind. These cheeses will be featured on the next menu at the Chef's Tasting dinner this week. I have been out meeting farmers and local food producers to bring extraordinary ingredients to the Farm to Fabulous Chef's tasting I'm cooking at the Flour Girls and Dough Boys Bakery in American Fork. Saturday nights, 6PM.

Brian is student of the week!

Brian was so excited to be the teacher's special helper all week. Today we celebrated in his classroom and even got to bring Duke for all of his friends to meet. It was awesome.
He brought a treat for everyone and had a really fun time.
Also, Brian has had 6 weeks of perfect spelling tests, so we will go to the nicklecade to have a fun reward tomorrow evening.
Way to go, Brian!