Date Night Idea | Homemade Ravioli

Work has been super crazy.  I have been on a project that has been eating into my evenings.  I have been going into work early and staying until 8 or 9 at night during the week.  I also have been putting in hours working weekends from home.  The husband has been taking care of everything in order to keep our household moving.  Thank goodness, because otherwise I don’t know how I would survive.

On top of long, stressful work weeks, we are also updating our downstairs half bath.  I am just so tired. I took Friday off from work in order to catch up on other items around the house….and to take time to relax.

We took some much needed downtime and knocked off one of my 17 by the end of 17 goals: make homemade pasta!  (You can read the entire list here.) We didn’t just make homemade pasta.  Noooo!  We made homemade ravioli.  It was a fun stay at home and relax date night.

BASIC PASTA RECIPE

We picked up a bag of Bob’s Red Mill Semolina Flour made with durum wheat. We were able to find this at Whole Foods in the aisle with other types of flour.

We used the basic pasta recipe that was on the package

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups of Bob’s Red Mill Semolina Flour
• 1/2 tsp salt (optional)
• 2 eggs or 3 egg whites, beaten
• 2 Tbsp water
• 2 Tbsp olive oil

Instructions:

• Combine Bob’s Red Mill Semolina Flour and salt.
• Add beaten eggs or egg whites, water, and oil to flour and salt mixture.
• Mix to make a stiff dough.

Our dough looked like this when we were done mixing:

Next you will want to knead the dough for 10 minutes until the dough is elastic.  Wrap dough in a towel or place in a plastic bag and let it rest for 20 minutes.

PRESSING THE PASTA

I have wanted to make my own homemade pasta for about a year.  It has been on my list, but we just never seemed to get around to it.  A number of months ago, the husband and I got motivated, but didn’t follow through.  During this time, we bought a pasta press.  The pasta press came in very handy.  I highly recommend you get one.  It can roll and cut your pasta to make it all the same height.  Also, it attaches to the table so it is sturdy to use. However, this can also be achieved by using a rolling pin.

Each section of dough had to go through the pasta press at least three times to get the desired thickness.  Each time you pass the dough through, you change the settings to allow for thinner, and thinner dough to pass through.  I can imagine this would have been a ton of fun to do with kids.  My husband is basically a child and he didn’t hurt himself once.

After we rolled the dough through the pasta press, we were able to get a couple of really long lengths of dough.  We used biscuit cutters to get cut the raviolis.  The biscuit cutter allowed us to get consistent shapes and was fast.

RAVIOLI FILLING

After the husband got the pasta press rolling, he was good on his own for a few minutes.  I consolidated our steps by starting the filling for the raviolis.

I chopped some fresh mushrooms.

I sauteed the mushrooms with a little butter and garlic.  The butter was so the mushrooms wouldn’t stick to the pan.  The garlic was to taste.

While the mushrooms were cooking, I chopped about a 1/2 cup of oregano, fresh from our garden.

Once the mushrooms were finished cooking, I added a cup of ricotta cheese, a handful of shredded mozzarella cheese (not shown), a table spoon of granulated garlic, the sauteed mushrooms, and 1/2 cup of chopped oregano to a large bowl.

I mixed the ingredients until combined. I wanted to be able to taste a little of each item with each bite.

I then spooned the mixture into my ravioli shells.

You want to be careful not to overfill the ravioli shells as you will need to press them closed.  There needs to be space around the outside so the pasta does not come apart during cooking.

Place an empty ravioli shell on top of the pasta and filling.  Press around the outside of the shell with your fingers or a fork.

COOKING YOUR RAVIOLI

We used a fork to close the edges of our ravioli’s.  Hence, the fork marks around the edge.  We didn’t have an issue with any of the shells opening during cooking.  My husband was certain we would lose at least one or two.  We didn’t lose any!

To cook, bring a large pot of water containing 1/2 teaspoon of olive oil to a boil.  (The olive oil keeps the pasta from sticking.)  Add pasta and cook until tender.  We cooked our pasta for about 5 minutes.

Serve pasta with your favorite sauce, pesto, or toss with olive oil or butter, pepper and Parmesan cheese.  I made an Alfredo sauce with spicy Italian sausage, more sauteed mushrooms, and a bunch of butter!  It was fabulous!