Dinner and a Workout

For some reason, I thought it would be a good idea to make homemade ravioli last night. I've never made this or any other kind of pasta from scratch before but I thought how hard could it really be? Hmmm...

I started off with 2 cups of whole wheat flour (thought I'd make healthy pasta), 3 eggs, and a 1/4 tsp of salt. This is what I got...

...a hard, clumpy mass that would never be able to call itself pasta. I pushed the cement pile out of the way and started over with all purpose white flour. I made a little mound of flour and salt then added the 3 eggs.

This is where it started to get messy...I tried to mix the flour and eggs with a fork, but I just ended up having egg ooze everywhere. To really mix this together I had to dig right in with my hands. Eventually, it started to form a dough ball which I continued to knead for about another 5 minutes. Then I separated the dough into thirds.

Funny Bun woke up at this time, so I let the dough rest for about 10 - 15 minutes while I changed and fed him. After I had him all settled in his high chair, I started to roll out the dough. This is where the workout really started! Not only is the dough extremely difficult to roll by hand, but I was doing this on our kitchen island, which has wheels! Either I would get banged in the legs whenever I brought the rolling pin back towards me or I would have to chase the island down when I moved the rolling pin away from me. At least someone thought it was funny...

Eventually, I had all 3 dough balls rolled out. There weren't as thin as I had hoped, but they'd work.

For the ravioli filling, I used 8 oz of Ricotta cheese, about 1/4 c of Italian shredded cheese, and a sprinkling of Asiago cheese. To give it a little more flavor, I used garlic powder, oregano, and basil. I also added one egg to help keep everything together.

I have a small scoop that I use for cookie dough, so that's what I used to put the filling on the pasta. Looking back, I should've used something smaller because the raviolis were way too big for me.

I brushed some water on the dough along the outside of the filling and then folded the dough over. Next I pressed the dough down around the filling and used a pizza cutter to cut it into squares.

After they were cut, I pinched the edges to give the ravioli a better seal.

If you aren't going to be cooking the ravioli right away, place them on wax paper in a single layer. If they are touching, they will stick together. You can either store them in the fridge, or put them in the freezer. Once frozen, you can place them all in a storage bag or container.

If you are cooking them right away, bring some water to boil and then add the ravioli. They should only take 3-5 minutes to cook and they will usually start to float when they are done.

Originally I had planned on just putting some olive oil and italian spices on the ravioli...

But because they were so big and kind of thick, I ended up using some spaghetti sauce.

All in all, it probably took me one and a half hours to make these from start to finish. Yes, they were good. But they would've been a lot better if I had one of those pasta machines to get the dough really thin and if they were smaller. I will probably make this again sometime, but it definitely won't be a weekly (or probably even monthly) occurrence. Although, if you want a really good workout for your arms...this would be the way to go!

By the way...if you're wondering what happened to that hard mess of whole wheat flour and eggs...

I crumbled it into a pan...drizzled honey over it...and used it for goat treats!