Homemade Ravioli

Here's a quick how-to on homemade ravioli. Basically I scoured the internet for instructions and all the recipes out there are generally the same; flour, eggs, salt. I'll also give you the recipe (and by recipe, I mean guidelines) of what we filled our ravi's with...but you can basically put whatever the heck you want in them. Since it was our freekend, we used what we had in the house: cottage cheese, parmesan, tomatoes, herbs, etc. They ended up being delicious! Definitely something I'm planning to do again, mixing it up on the fill-ins. Brandon also said it was just like making perogies with his Grandmother...so if you know how to make perogies, you're already there. Honestly it's not difficult at all, just takes a little time. Definitely worth the work though!

Whole Wheat Basil and Cottage Cheese Ravioli


ingredients:
2 cups whole wheat flour
3 large eggs + 1 for egg wash
1/2 tsp salt
some water, enough to make smooth dough

method:
Whisk together flour and salt. Or hand mix (that's what I did...why would I want to dirty my whisk?)

Add eggs, one at a time, mix into flour by hand to form dough. Add water, if needed, to make a smooth dough, if it gets too sticky, just add more flour. Pretty sure you can add another egg if you wanted to, instead of water.

Knead dough for 10 minutes (ugh! I know. I made Brandon do it for half the time) until elastic and smooth. Wrap the dough ball in plastic wrap and let sit for 20 minutes or so. While you're letting the dough, make your filling.

Flour your work surface and roll the dough out, flipping and flouring as you go, until it is paper thin. The recipes I had recommend starting with a "just larger than a golfball" sized dough ball, but I rolled out the whole thing at once. Breaking it up into smaller pieces may have made sense though. Hindsight. The recipe also said "you will be able to see your hand through the dough when you lift it off the counter. We didn't roll it out that thin...and can you blame us? We were hungry!!!

Use a cookie cutter, or a glass, or you could probably even just cut the dough to shape, fill it with about a teaspoon of the filling you made while letting the dough set. Brush your egg wash (egg glue, if you will) on the outer rim of the dough, fold it in half, with the filling inside and then press the top to the bottom and form a seal. Try not to get air caught inside your ravi's.

Bring a pot of water to a boil and toss your ravioli in the pot for 4-5 minutes. They'll float to the top when they're ready to eat! Toss them in a sauce of your choosing and enjoy!!

Note: if you want to make them in advance or store them for later, freeze them on a baking sheet lined with parchment. Make sure they freeze in one layer, don't stack them. If you have too many ravi's for one baking sheet, you can put down another piece of parchment paper and place the next layer on top.

Basil Cottage Cheese Filling


ingredients:
1.5 cups cottage cheese
1/2 cup parmesan cheese, grated
1/2 cup stewed tomatoes
1/4 cup breadcrumbs
1 clove garlic
basil, to taste
italian seasoning (or oregano, basil, garlic etc.)
pepper to taste

method:
Chop tomatoes and add to a medium mixing bowl with all other ingredients. Adjust herbs and seasonings to taste. Fill your ravioli!!!