Beet and Ricotta Ravioli with Poppy Seed Brown Butter

Let's see - it's about the third week of January, which means you all must be pretty close to hitting your metaphorical wall of healthy eating pretty soon, right? Yeah, me too. In fact, Jeremy and I had a disastrous loss of will-power that involved Domino's Pizza, Hot Tamales, and Milk Duds over the weekend. Oops.








Luckily, we're still making our way through my new bible of healthy eating: Heidi Swanson's Super Natural Every Day. So we are still mostly on the right track.









This lovely dish is not from that book, however, as her recipes have been featured a million bajillion times over in the food blogosphere (like here, here, here, and here). But, but, but! This does have healthy components in it! Like beets, which have a tremendous amount of antioxidants, detoxifiers, and anti-inflammatory phytonutrients. And poppy seeds, which have high anti-oxidant properties and lots of oleic and linoleic acids. And butter, which has....kidding!








Some notes:
- When the recipe was featured in Bon Appetit (2005), their pasta sheets were very thin and made for pretty pink ravioli. However, I found that rolling the pasta out that thin causes them to break and spill filling while boiling. On a similar note, make sure to not allow the water to come to a rapid boil while the ravioli are cooking because this may cause them to break apart.
- You can substitute in any other soft cheese - goat cheese or gorgonzola would be tasty!
- If you don't have a pasta-maker or dont feel like rolling out dough, you can use store-bought wonton wrappers instead.
- These freeze very well. I definitely recommend making a double batch so that you can freeze the (uncooked) leftovers!