Reheating time: 10-15 minutes- boil water!

It’s truly a wonderful time of the year. Ray has so much great zucchini that we had to come up with a delicious way to get it in your mouths.  And we’ve done it!  Add fantastic, hand-made pasta (one of our favorite styles Deano’s does, with smoked, whipped mozzarella cheese, and loads of fresh basil) and you’ve got one of our favorite meals. If you don’t know Deano’s in Somerville, you should.  We get all our fresh pasta and ravioli from them – they’ve been making pasta for three generations, and it definitely shows. We’ve smothered it in a smooth, fresh zucchini + basil fondue, made with caramelized onions, and fava beans. Delicious. Add some fluffy tomato + basil focaccia, some of Ray’s famous salad mix, and a simple dressing, and you’re in summer heaven. Now you’ve got something exciting to look forward to for dinner. Get in there. 

For the ravioli:

First, bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. While it comes to a boil, warm the zucchini + basil fondue in a large saucepan – warm is great – don’t overcook this lusciousness. Once H2O is boiling, drop your ravis in, and give them a stir. Let them boil for 2ish minutes, till they swell up and they are all floating happily at the surface. Strain the ravis, reserving a splash or two of the pasta water (to add back into the sauce, helps the sauce cling to the pasta). Add the ravis to the zucchini fondue, stir well to coat, and thin the sauce out as necessary with the reserved pasta water. Once you’re happy with your sauce, kill the heat, and keep stirring every now and then until you’re ready with everything else. The sauce will thicken up as it cools and the pasta absorbs all the moisture, so keep that in mind when you’re deciding on your final consistency. We tend to like a bit thinner for our sauces, because in our opinion, they can get gluey- which we don’t like! A scoche of olive oil or a small whack of butter right before you plate will help prevent the glue factor from becoming an issue halfway through your dinner.

Plate it up, sprinkle some of the pistachio gremolata on top, and dig right in. Don’t even wait for the salad or the focaccia. This is all you need!

For the salad:

You know the drill. Toss the salad into a mixing bowl with the vinaigrette, give a season with s+p, and mix mix mix! 

For the focaccia:

Just give this fluffy goodness a toast in the toaster or oven, and plop it in your pasta bowl to catch any residual sauce that may be left behind 🙂

That’s it! Dinner is served, and solved. #weareweco