Last night we had great fun and a great meal over at our friends Irene and Ian's apartment. They are excellent cooks, and we learn so much just by watching them; I would pay to see them on a Saturday Afternoon Cooking Show. They're the ones who gave us the idea for a recipe-centered blog.

Our goal for the evening was ravioli. Laura and I had never made it from scratch, and the process was a lot of fun. We had a nice assembly line, with pasta-dough-maker, ravoili-filler, and finished extractor. Ian made two mixtures with goat cheese fillings, one with roasted peppers, the other with sun-dried tomatoes. It was fun to pick out the tang of the tomato-filled raviolis versus the smoothness of the red pepper ones, all covered with a mushroom marinara sauce. There's nothing like enjoying fresh pasta with friends. :)

To round out the meal, Irene made a pesto appetizer (no pine nuts, yay!), a fresh apple and gouda salad (an Irene special), with an apple crisp for desert; everything was excellent! Ian shared with us one of his many cooking secrets, how to make a salad dressing emulsion last the whole meal. He uses one part vinegar, one part oil, one part water, and a dollop of mustard to act as the binding agent. This is definately something to remember.