This morning a friend commented she was hoping to make ravioli today, and once she said the word ravioli I couldn't get it out of my head. I immediately was craving homemade cheese filled ravioli with an alfredo sauce, crumbled bacon and smoked provolone.
So, that's what we're having for dinner tonight!
I actually remembered to grab my iphone and snap a couple pictures while I was making it. Regular readers around these parts know I usually forget or just don't feel like taking pictures, so I don't. Ha ha.
The pasta recipe is adaptable - and it's one I've posted on An American Housewife many times before. Use the basic flour, eggs and a bit of oil. A little more flour or a little water to bring the dough together. You can add things like jalapenos, spinach, etc. to the dough but today I went with a plain pasta except I added about 1/2 cup fresh ground whole wheat flour to my dough.
Homemade Pasta
2 1/4 c flour
1 t salt
1-2 t olive oil
3-4 eggs
In a food processor bowl, place the salt and flour.
Put the top on and
while pulsing or running on low, add a teaspoon-ish of oil and start
adding eggs. You probably only need 3 eggs if they are typical 'large' eggs so start with that. Process/pulse just until the dough forms a ball shape. If it hasn't
gathered itself in a ball by the 3rd egg, you can add another teaspoon
of oil or water or use a 4th egg. Water or additional flour by the
teaspoon will give you the texture you need for it to be a ball if it's too wet.
Let it rest 10 minutes. Then either roll very, very thin with a rolling
pin or use a pasta machine (my preference). Some people have a pasta making attachment on their mixers (like a KitchenAid, etc but I do not.) I use a manual, hand crank pasta machine
and starting with number 1, I run it through to a number 4. You can
then cut into thin noodles or use wide sheets to make homemade ravioli.
For tonight's ravioli I grabbed 4 oz. of cream cheese and just tossed in a few other cheeses we had on hand. Today it was a bit of pepper jack, mozzarella and a bit of an Irish hard cheese similar to Parmesan. Warmed in the microwave, stirred to mix and then by teaspoon full into the rounds of ravioli.
The extra dough was made into noodles. I used the manual pasta maker but you can use a knife or pizza cutter to slice 1/2" wide noodles from your dough. Toss into boiling water right away, or let them dry a bit and freeze for another day. They only take about 3-4 minutes to cook for noodles and about 5 minutes at a rolling simmer for ravioli. Drain and serve as you wish.
Just a quick photo as I was making the pasta. I bought this manual pasta machine about 23 (?) years ago. It's made in Italy and is heavy and sturdy and I love it! It came with the ravioli mold at the time but I've made ravioli many times without it. Just lay your pasta down, top fillings every 2 inches. Lay another sheet on top and press around each round to seal, then slice to cut apart. Although this mold does make it easier.
Just a simple filling of various cheeses today. I often add some garlic, jalapenos, crumbled bacon... just cheese today.
To seal with a ravioli maker you just roll a rolling pin over and press lightly on the raised edges.
Ready to pop them out!
At first this photo throws you off a bit! But it's right side up. I wanted to show what the bottom of the ravioli mold looks like with the cheese filling them and getting ready to flip it upside down and pop them out.
