So I should say except for the pasta dough I didn’t measure any of the ingredients for this recipe. Here are some approximations but use measurements that make sense to you! Follow your tastebuds.

Ingredients

For the pasta dough:

300 g. all purpose flour

100 g. semolina flour

4 eggs

For the filling:

1/2 cup puréed pumpkin

1/4 cup cream

1/4 cup puréed white beans

1/2 cup grated Pecorino Romano cheese

1/4 cup shredded mozzarella

2 tablespoons nutritional yeast (optional)

a few dashes of Trader Joe’s umami powder (or onion powder)

black pepper, to taste

pinch of ground sage

1/2 teaspoon dried thyme

salt, to taste

For the sauce:

1/3 cup puréed pumpkin

1/4 cup cream

1/4 cup chicken stock

olive oil

1/4 onion, chopped finely

6 crimini mushrooms, roughly chopped

pinch of ground nutmeg

salt and pepper to taste

a big handful of fresh spinach, roughly chopped

Pecorino Romano for serving

Directions:

First, mix the pasta dough. Combine the flours in a mixing bowl. Make a well in the center and crack in the eggs. Lightly beat eggs with a fork while incorporating the flour. Combine until a rough dough forms. Remove from bowl and knead on a lightly floured surface for 5 minutes until dough is smooth and slightly elastic. Cover with plastic wrap and let sit for 30 minutes to an hour.

In the meantime create your filling in a mixing bowl and transfer to a gallon zip top bag. Set aside.

Start assembling the sauce by heating some olive oil in a pan and sautéing the onions and mushrooms with a pinch of salt. Combine the cream, pumpkin and chicken stock in a small liquid measuring cup. Add the nutmeg, salt and pepper and set aside. Turn off the heat when onions and mushrooms are cooked through and the mushrooms are starting to brown.

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Now it’s time to roll the pasta. Work with 100g of dough at a time. Flatten a piece of dough with your hands and run it through a pasta roller on the biggest setting. Fold the dough and run it through again. Repeat this six more times. Then switch to the next smaller setting and run the dough through once. Repeat until you’ve run it through the thinnest setting and the dough is as thin as paper. You may need to dust it with flour now and then to keep it from sticking.

Lay the flattened sheet on a countertop and cut it in half lengthwise. Snip a corner off the filling bag and make 8 dots of filling on one piece of the dough, evenly spaced. Lightly wet the dough around the filling and place the second sheet on top. Gently press the dough to get out air bubbles and seal in the filling. Use a pizza cutter, bench scraper or cookie cutter to cut your ravioli how you like. Place on a lightly floured baking sheet. Repeat with remaining dough until you’ve used up all your filling. Refrigerate any extra dough for pasta tomorrow.

When water is boiling add your ravioli. Gently stir with a wooden spoon. Reheat the pan with the onions and mushrooms and add the beans and spinach. Cook until wilted, just a couple of minutes. By now the pasta should be ready.

Use a large slotted spoon or spider to remove the ravioli from the water. Divide into 4 bowls. Add the cream, pumpkin, stock mixture to the saucepan and combine till heated through. Pour over the ravioli and top with Pecorino Romano cheese. Serve immediately.

I mean, doesn’t that look delicious?

I love a good lasagna, but sometimes I don’t feel like wrangling boiling hot noodles. This polenta lasagna is all the flavor of the traditional dish, but with slightly less effort and an added creamy texture. Also, it’s even better reheated the next day (as it appears in the above photo).

Polenta Lasagna

Serves 4

Ingredients:

-Polenta, hot and prepared Bon Appetit Instant Pot style (you start with 1 cup dry polenta if you want to follow a different recipe)

-1 pound sweet Italian sausage, casings removed

-2-3 cups marinara sauce

-Shredded mozzarella cheese

-1-1.5 cups prepared béchamel sauce – I recommend Massimo Bottura’s method

-Freshly grated pecorino Romano cheese

Directions:

First, you’ll need to prepare the polenta. The Bon Appetit recipe I linked above is the best recipe I’ve ever found and it’s perfect for this dish because you add 4 oz. of pecorino Romano cheese, butter and ground pepper – that’s a lot of good flavor!

However you decide to make it, just before it’s done, spray a half sheet pan with cooking oil. Carefully pour the hot polenta onto the pan and spread it into an even layer. This doesn’t have to be perfect. I think my polenta was about 1/4 inch thick.

Let the polenta cool completely. I set it outside since it was 43 F.

Preheat oven to 375 F. Heat a medium pan over medium-high heat and add the sausage. Cook until browned. Set aside.

In the meantime, prepare your béchamel. Now it’s assembly time.

Using a paring knife and possibly a measuring tape, determine what size you should cut your polenta. I made my sheets 5×7 inches, which meant two pieces per layer with three layers. I didn’t cut them too wide or long because I didn’t want them to break as I lifted them off the pan.

Lightly spray a smallish casserole dish with cooking spray. My dish was 10×7″. Ladle some marinara into the bottom of the dish and distribute evenly.

Carefully lift your polenta pieces from the pan using a fish spatula and place them into the casserole dish. Sprinkle on 1/3 of the sausage. Pour 1/3 of the béchamel over the sausage and use a rubber spatula to spread it out across the polenta. Pour on some more marinara and spread it out too. Sprinkle lightly with shredded mozzarella (or heavily if you desire).

Repeat with the remaining polenta, sausage, béchamel, marinara and mozzarella. Sprinkle the top layer with grated pecorino.

Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes. Remove foil and bake another 15 if you want the top to brown a little. Remove from oven and let sit 5-10 minutes or until you can’t stand it anymore.

Store any leftovers in an airtight container and reheat in the microwave for ultimate second day satisfaction.