Plated Review - Meal #2: Butternut Squash Ravioli with Pesto

For this Plated meal, we tried something a bit more complicated. We also got dessert, but by the time we started cooking, we decided to leave the Chocolate Espresso Crinkle Cookies for midweek as a treat. The meal was Butternut Squash Ravioli with Pesto.

Although Plated is generally easier, this meal was a bit of a fiasco, but mostly for reasons beyond anyone's control. We got started fairly late, because my husband was watching football. Since I started by myself, I forgot to take pictures from the beginning, too! Everything was there and the squash was cut already (although I needed to cut it into smaller cubes to make it easier to mash later).

By the time my husband joined me, the squash was roasting in the oven and everything was ready for the pesto. Unfortunately, the pesto calls for either hand mixing (which is quite difficult) or a food processor/blender. Since we had a blender, we were a little overconfident. Suffice it to say, because it's us, we got everything into the blender, turned it in, and then... after 15 years, the blender decided it had had enough and stopped working.

Now things were already cooking and we needed to hand mix pesto. My husband did that while I started the ravioli filling. The water had been boiling but since we were delayed, I put it on low and by the time we were ready to stuff the ravioli, it was barely warm.


We got the ravioli stuffed and only one, I'm proud to say, fell apart in the pot. However, the process had to be done in two sections so we could cook one meal while my husband made the other set of ravioli. In getting the pasta from the pan into the bowl with the pesto for coating, excess water ended up in the pesto and it was a little too watery. Then, by the time we were finished with both meals, we needed to reheat one for a few seconds in the microwave.

The food tasted fine - the pesto was really good even by hand mixing and the ravioli could have been great. However, the combination of too much water, plus a filling that wasn't smooth enough, made it just okay. I think when I've had butternut squash ravioli in the past, too, the sauce was usually sage cream, not pesto. I like both, but I'm not sure I liked them together.

Either way, we saved the recipe for another attempt in the future when we have a blender (we ordered a new one last night), because we think the meal had real potential, but ended up being just okay due to those circumstances and poor timing.