How Do I Get Myself Into These Things?

That's a question I frequently ask myself. Or my husband. I ask him that a lot too. But tonight is a good example of how these things happen to me.
I made a big mess in the kitchen tonight.
My kids are at my mom's house, so I did what any mom would do when presented a night alone with her husband. I arranged to have my sister-in-law over for dinner and a movie.
By the time I got home from work, the Starbucks chocolate and single slice of bacon I'd had to eat weren't doing much for me anymore (I swear that I don't usually eat like that. It's down to whatever we can claw out of the pantry around here) and I set my mind on pumpkin ravioli for dinner.
Have I ever made pumpkin ravioli?
No.
Have I ever eaten pumpkin ravioli?
Again, no.
I don't know what put it in my head, but there it was.
So I did a little looking around for a recipe. I found several, but they all called for homemade pasta which I was soooo not going to bother with on an already-hungry Friday night. Plus, most of them contained eggs, which I'm allergic to. So there.
But a wonton wrapper should work, right?
We dropped off the kids and headed for the grocery store. We searched and searched to no avail. After about a half-hour of searching for substitutions, I settled on phyllo dough, thinking that was awfully close to wonton wrappers.
When we got home, I left my shiny black secretary shoes on (they have white piping around the foot and strap - sigh) and tied on my ladybug apron, which looked very smart with my black and white polka dotted shirt. I turned a little Jose Gonzalez on (I cannot get enough of his voice). I started trying to figure out how to make this stuff.
But really, ravioli is boiled and I don't think you can boil phyllo dough.
Didn't I see a homemade pasta recipe from Giada that didn't contain eggs?
Oh yes. There it is. That doesn't look so hard.
And where was a pumpkin filling that I could use? Martha has one, of course! And, oh! It has sage browned butter. I could add some shallots to that...yes indeed.
But hers has nutmeg. Shallots and sage don't go with nutmeg. At least, I don't think so.
Hm.
Well, I made the dough from scratch and I completely made up a pumpkin filling with a little sage, some shallots, thyme and some coarse kosher salt. A little ricotta for everybody but me (insert pouty face).
Rolly, rolly, roll that dough and fill, it, pat it, cut it, boil it.
Brown that butter and swivel those hips a little bit (cooking is always more dance-y with music) and - Voila!
Lumpy pumpkin ravioli that lost a lot of its filling in the boiling process.
Mindy and Chris started singing "You've Lost that Pumpkin Fillin'."
I laughed.
And I drank some of the lovely pinot noir that Mindy brought. And a little bit more of it, thank you.
But the ravioli tasted pretty good anyway. Especially with more wine.
Then we stepped back and surveyed the kitchen.
Wowzers.
Poor Chris, my dishwasher. At least he's well-fed.