La Luna by Enrico Casarosa

                                                             

Cooking Skill Level: EASY INTERMEDIATE

I'm finally getting the books and menus organized, so I'll be able to post the stories we've already eaten fairly quickly. For some of them, I was too busy to take pictures of the food preparation so I'll remake some of the menus and photograph those so you can see just how I've done it.

This time, the story is La Luna, a beautiful story about a boy, his father and his grandfather. This is the boy's first time tending to the family business, scattering the stars that are stuck to the moon.

The tie between the menu and the story is really the moon and stars. I've added some brooms to allow the boys to re-enact the story. I made ravioli, great big full moon round ravioli, and filled it with stars and cheese. I scattered some ham and kale stars and shooting star tails on the plate, put a couple of the moons in with those stars and topped it with an easy Alfredo sauce.

Let’s start with the ravioli. First, I used my favorite pasta recipe (2+ cups flour, 3 eggs, and 1 tsp salt – this time, I added some parsley so the moons would be slightly green) to make the dough. I mixed all of the ingredients and rolled it into a ball, stuck it in a plastic bag and let it sit while I made the stuffing.

So, using my mandolin because it’s an easy and quick way to make thin slices (you can use a knife if you don’t have a mandolin), I sliced the sweet potatoes, yellow squash and the carrots.  Then, I started cutting star shapes out of the sweet potato, discovering that sweet potatoes are far tougher than my fingers.

TIP: Blanch your sweet potato slices before you try to cut shapes out of them.

 

I found some very small cutters at a craft store which are actually used to make shapes for scrapbooking. Since even my smallest star cookie cutter was too big, these proved to be just what I needed. They came in themed packs, which I only noticed once I got them home. I guess I was so focused on the fact that there were two different star shapes that I didn’t even notice the baby bottle and carriage shapes. I guess the next person I know who has a baby shower will get some special ravioli. 

 

Once I had my blanched carrots and sweet potatoes and my yellow squash cut into stars, I added some shredded cheddar, salt, pepper, fresh grated nutmeg and cottage cheese.

 

Next, I rolled out my pasta using a rolling pin, and cut an even number of circles using my largest biscuit cutter. I brushed one half of the circles (one half of the total number of circles, not semi-circles) with egg wash and put a heaping spoonful of stars on them. I then topped them with another circle of dough and crimped the edges to seal.

 

 

While I boiled water to cook the ravioli moons, I worked on the ham and kale. You could use any thinly sliced meat here; turkey, chicken, beef, pork. It just so happens I had some left oversliced ham. I layered the ham slices and the kale so that as I cut the stars out, the ham wouldn’t stick together. I would love to say that I cut all of this into stars, but my hands got tired, so we ended up with stars and the shooting star tails. The two younger boys just said “ooohh” and nodded. The eldest said,“Grummy. You know there aren’t shooting stars in the story.” BUSTED.

 

I also started up a quick Alfredo sauce. 1 cup of half and half, a handful of grated pecorino romano cheese. I didn’t add garlic since I wasn’t sure it would go well with the nutmeg in the ravioli.

 While all of that was cooking, I showed the boys how to make brooms out of string cheese. Just peel the cheese ¼ of the way up the stick. We had to make a few extra.

 

 

The boys loved biting into the ravioli and having the stars and cheese goo pour out. It was so fun seeing their faces! They ate it all, even the kale (but then who wouldn’t eat anything drenched in creamy sauce?). They tried banging their forks onto the plates to make a Ping sound (read the book, you'll understand) until I told them I didn't want my plates broken.  Afterward, we had some fruit slices and cut with my star cookie cutters and star shaped sugar cookies – I make cookies for my dad and always make extra to have on hand for the boys. I just make sure to use a lot of different shapes.

TIP: if you're not up to making your own ravioli, just look in the freezer aisle for round ravioli, these are usually cheese ravioli. Then, make up your alfredo and put some star shaped vegetables in the sauce. Trust me, this is still a fun dinner!

Title	La Luna
Author	Enrico Casarosa
Illustrator
Publisher	Disney Press
Highlights /Tie in	Full Moon, Crescent Moon, Stars
Reactions to the Book	The boys loved seeing the boy, his father and his grandpa. They borrowed my brooms and went sweeping for stars.
Meal	Full moon (round) ravioli stuffed with stars cut from carrots and sweet potatoes, with a bit of beschamel  Ham stars (cut from thin deli-sliced ham) sprinkled across the plate (tip: layer ham with chard/spinach/kale – stack as high as you want, then cut with cookie cutter … ham layers will not stick together) String Cheese Brooms Star shaped cookies and fruits
Reactions to the Meal	· When they cut into the ravioli, (the youngest just picked it up and took a bite), the stars and cheesy goo came pouring out.   All three of the boys used the string cheese brooms to sweep  the stars around their plates. The kale and ham stars became kale and ham shooting star tails (I got tired of cutting out stars), but they still loved them.

 I'll get back to photgraphing and writing up the rest of our story dinners and get some more posted as soon as possible.