Disclaimer: The pictures are real, the person cooking them (me) on the other hand is not Italian just married in and has had great teachers!
With that said lets get started. I have been asked many times by different friends to help them make home made ravioli. I have also been asked to make some for them, well here you go guys! This is as good as it gets till you set a date or come over when I do it again.
Lets start with spices. Here are the ones I use in the beef. I would love to give you how much but I just don't know, so the best I can say is to taste.
Here is the browned ground beef. Also the cheese that you mix in with the beef. This is a very simple filling and you can tweak it by adding or changing any thing that you would like to add. (i.e. spinach, shredded cheese of your choice) Mix all of the filling together and chill it in the fridge well you work on making the pasta.
Some people do this more the old fashion way but I tend to do it the fast and efficient way(after all I do this at "nap time"). Today I used 6 eggs and flour. Placed in my stand mixer with the mixing paddle until the mixture was firm enough to add the dough hook.(a note on the flour its another thing that I don't know the measurement on it is all texture. I put in about 1/3 cup at a time)
after the mixer has done all it can do it't time to get to work. If you have ever made bread this next step might be something you have done before, heck if you have mixed playdough colors together it comes close to that as well. Kneading the pasta dough until when the dough is cut in half with a sharp knife there are no packets of flour and the surface is smooth and silky not sticky.
Now onto the fun part! Making pasta!!! Once again you can see that I have taken the easy road, Kitchen Aid makes an attachment for the stand mixer that will roll past! How cool is that!!! I love mine and there is no way that I would crank out pasta so my family loves that I have one.
To use this pasta roller(and most others I have seen) you need to slice off and flour slices of dough and feed them through the roller to make them flat and the thickness you want.
There are many ways to put your filling in between 2 flats of pasta, I use 2 spoons so my hands don't get sticky. making a filling sandwich is the next step followed by cutting between the filling piles. Hint: I have been using a pizza cuter to do this on my floured wood surface and had very little to no scoring of my dinning room table. (Not to mention that it's a lot faster)
Forking! This next step is done by the kids, well in my mother in laws house, the first time I was witness to this process but my nieces and nephews were much older then my kids are now so I have a few years until I have help here.
Forking the edges of the pasta together will do the same thing as a press or egg wash but it gives the kids something to do to help and it also can be done with something you have in the house. Works great just don't fork to close to the filling if you pop a hole then it will pop in the water, more on that later.
Check out that cool tool!!! That is what my mother in law refers to as a spider, I am not sure what the cooking specialty store that I found it at 6 years into my marriage called it but I finally found one!!!
Ok enough about my random cooking tools...let's get to the water in the pot, you are going to need a big pot and hot hot water. A rolling boil if your pot's will get there. We make the ravioli mid day and they sit on a floured table under a clean dish cloth until it is time to cook. I place about 5 in the pot at a time they sink at first and you will know they are ready when they float to the top. I use my spider to fish them out dip them a few times to get the extra flour off of them and into the serving bowl they go! We layer our sauce with each set that goes in the water in a large mixing bowl.
Here is the part that everyone enjoys! The dinner table. This one is much more full then most on Ravioli Night but we have family in from out of town and I had to go all out! I will do my best to post more ...Italian Dinner Table another time if it would be of interest.
And yes, I have to admit I over went way over my carb limit with this meal and did not go running. Making the dish should of burned at least half of the calories that it was to eat right...or is that just girl math? Back to working out tomorrow. Back to Running next week.
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