Chanukah arrived early this year, which provided a couple of good occasions for making and enjoying fresh pasta. The feature ingredients were fresh-picked spinach from Small Farm and Kite Hill Almond Milk Ricotta from Whole Foods.

The 8th and last night of the holiday was December 5th, so I made Spinach Ravioli.

The previous day I had made my favorite Caponata (a la Romagnolis), with the addition of zucchini (not in the recipe, but I like it!). This caponata made a superb side dish with the ravioli, and the pairing with a white Basque wine from Domaine Ilarria was perfect.

The next day I decided to use the remaining spinach-ricotta filling for some homemade cannelloni. That worked equally well. These two pasta dishes allowed me to perfect the pasta dough recipe: 130 grams of flour, approximately 50% each of Caputo “00” and Gustiamo’s Rimicinata Cuore, plus one extra large whole egg and one egg yolk. It also provided enough leftover dough for a fettuccine lunch the next day!