Friday, November 19, 2010

Roasted Fig and Goat Cheese Raviolis A Simple Sage Sauce

We were in Costco the other day and ran across a display of all the cartoons we grew up with, packaged in wonderful DVD boxed sets. Helloooo Loony Toons, good bye paycheck. We hit that point where we've started talking about getting some offspring and what we want them to watch on TV comes up every now and again, especially when channel surfing lands us on some kids network. Every conversation tends to center around how much better TV was when we were kids (the answer is "much") and how awful kids TV is now. So coming across these boxed sets really made our day and restored hope in the future of humanity or something like that. What does this have to do with our post? Absolution nothing, but it must have been pretty funny to see grown adults getting excited over kids shows in the middle of Costco. This post more centers around the fig tree in our backyard and the comedy of errors that produced these raviolis. So of the multitude of trees that we've been able to bring back to life here since we've moved in include now 2 Fig trees which both produced fruit this year. We were pretty excited about that, not as excited as we were about the nectarine tree but still pretty excited. When the first crop came, they were horrid and we were pretty disappointed but have heard that its pretty normal for the first crop to be a rough one for figs. Around the same time we were given some figs from someone and Charisse got crafty in the kitchen. After our Christmas Ravioli disaster of 2009 Charisse dove into a rav making fever and really nailed down a solid method of putting them together. We've found that using a hand press was the best way and this was the perfect excuse to use it. Pulling together basically stuff we had in the kitchen, we did a goat and ricotta cheese base with the chopped roasted figs. The flavors were wonderful. Everything you love about both types of cheese accented with sweet fig. The only thing we'd change next time is the texture. It needed a little something that separates the texture of the cheese from the texture of the ravioli dough. What that is we don't know, maybe you do?






Roasted Fig Raviolis 
What You Will Need

12 figs
1 cup ricotta cheese
1/2 cup goat cheese
3 1/2 cups flour
4 eggs
salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 350*

Slice figs in half and roast until tender, about 15 minutes. Coarsely chop and mix with ricotta, goat cheese, and salt and pepper. Set aside. 

To make dough, mix flour and egg and a pinch of salt until well combined. Use your pasta roller, and roll out sheets for raviolis. Lay sheets on a floured surface. 
Fill and stamp out your raviolis and flour again. Cook in a large pot of boiling salted water until they float to the top. 

Simple Sage Sauce
What You Will Need
1/4 cup sage (minced)
2 cloves garlic (minced)
1 cup heavy cream 
1 Tbs butter
salt and pepper to taste

In a large skillet, melt butter and brown garlic. Add in the sage and saute until fragrant. Mix in cream and simmer until sauce thickens. Salt and pepper and top raviolis. 

28 comments:

  1. Two of my favorite things - Figs and Goat Cheese. Now that you rolled it up into one delicious dish - brilliant! This is a must make! Enjoy the weekend.

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  2. Ok even your colander is cute. I was scanning my new FoodBuzz posts and this leapt off the page. How delicious! Ironically I'm in the middle of making your Beet Gnocchi right now (what a gorgeous color)! Guess I'll be queueing this up for the next dish! Beautiful post.

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  3. Me and ravioli have never been friends... I have Flintstone fingers when it comes to making them... love the figs in the pasta !

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  4. These sound incredibly delicious!

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  5. The sage sauce looks so creamy, and I love the sound of the flavours in the ravioli!

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  6. This looks fabulous. I'm new to cooking and haven't worked with figs yet, but I'm obsessed with goat cheese, so I'll have to put these together. This recipe looks like a perfect opportunity.

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  7. Excellent recipe and excellent photos!

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  8. Oh... You are so lucky that you can still get fresh figs at this time of the year! They're all gone for us... Delicious recipe!

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  9. Oh my, how I could devour these. Your photos are so tempting, I could lick the screen.

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  10. What a gorgeous ravioli dish - really lovely! I agree with you about kids' TV these days. There are a few shows that I let my kids watch, but I am so glad that their favorites right now are old episodes or Scooby Doo and Tom & Jerry.

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  11. Gorgeous. I'm totally jealous of your ravioli cutter!

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  12. Thanks for stopping by my blog - I'm glad you like the Carrot Cake... It's probably the #1 best way to go through a 10 lb bag of carrots at high speed.

    Feel free to become a follower @
    http://form5artisan.blogspot.com

    Cheers! Christina.

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  13. Wow, that is an absolutely fantastic idea, and it looks great! (And I think the answer is actually "much, much").

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  14. Now that's ravioli! The creaminess with the sweet figs. I always do a sage-butter sauce with fresh ravioli - that's it - sage and butter. Going to play with your recipe. If i can find fresh figs that are good.

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  15. Wow, your pictures are so beautiful!! This ravioli looks great. The flavor combination of figs, goat cheese, sage, and garlic has got to be over the top.

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  16. Totally gorgeous, all the flavours together. I would love to try some!

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  17. Thanks for stopping by! You asked about pumpkin balls. All you need is a pumpkin (or two) and a melon baller. I used the end of the melon baller that makes about a 1 inch ball.

    Best,
    Bonnie

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  18. What a totally unexpected flavor combination for raviolis. I love it! I'm a new (like a month ago) convert to the wonders of goat cheese, so I'd just love to gobble this right up.

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  19. maybe you could add some chopped toasted walnuts to the filling to add some texture? Let me know what you think/ if you try again! The dish sounds divine to me! I'm kicking myself I didn't come across it before fig season was over here!... next year :)

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  20. oh my goodness, this looks and sounds absolutely amazing! i must try this!

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  21. These look amazing! Can't wait to try them!

    -Amanda

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  22. I love ravioli... I'm dying to try making my own someday- looks amazing!

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  23. Figs and goat cheese are two of may favorite ingredients. This looks delicious. I have never made ravioli, but I am so inspired now. Thanks!

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