Pure genious: Truffle Ravioli

I have already professed my love for Rafetto's Italian Market on Houston Street (see my November 12 posting). I had heard tell of their truffle ravioli, but had yet to experience them. Wow, is all I have to say. Truffle has been one of my favorite flavors as of late, but it can often be overpowering. There was the time, for example, that I carried home a piece of cheese with black truffles on the subway and people actually moved away from me. It was quite pungent.

The truffle raviolis, however, are subtle, luxurious, and unbelievably delicious. The ingredients are simple: mushrooms, black truffles, white truffles, ricotta, truffle oil, garlic, breadcrumbs, eggs, and salt. At $11.95 a one pound box, they are the most expensive item in the store. Oh, but so worth it! We made half a box of truffle raviolis and half a box of the arugula and ricotta raviolis, another favorite. On the advice of the people at Rafetto's we simply tossed them with butter and parmesan. I also sauteed some mushrooms in butter and threw them in. Served with an arugula salad, this dinner was divine. We enjoyed it with a Chilean Merlot.


When we went outside to go out for the night, we found ourselves enjoying the first snow of the winter! Although it is long melted and gone now, there is something magical about that first snow...

Eclectic dinner: Wild mushroom ravioli, mashed potatoes, and salad.

Our friend Keegan came over for dinner last night. He was down in Florida for a few weeks before the election canvassing the wide variety of people living in the West Palm Beach area. He has some great stories to tell. Combining forces we cobbled together an eclectic but delicious (and very carby) meal.

At the base of it were wild mushroom raviolis from one of my favorite places on earth, Raffetto's. It is a small family-owned Italian market on Houston and Sullivan Streets. They make their own ravioli, manicotti, pasta, sausage, and sauces. Their prices are reasonable, and the same people have been running it for as long as I can remember. I will devote an entire blog post to them at some point soon, but for now here is somebody else's posting about them http://newyorkdailyphoto.blogspot.com/2007/04/raffettos.html


Keegan also made some delicious mashed potatoes to accompany our meal. We had a jar of tomato sauce on hand, and Keegan added an awesome tempeh mixture. He said that he mashed up the tempeh and cooked it on high heat for a while, basically burning it. But the resulting flavor was very deep. We mixed it with the sauce, plated everything, added a salad, and ta-da!