Homemade Spinach and Ricotta Ravioli

To celebrate Valentine's Day and our Anniversary, last weekend D and I decided we would try our hand at homemade ravioli. I say try because things didn't work out exactly as we expected...but it was a fun project, we learned a few lessons, and now our ravioli will be better next time!

Making ravioli is a time consuming and difficult process, but we wanted to put some of our Christmas gifts to good use. So we made some homemade pasta noodles and a wonderful spinach-ricotta filling.

Pasta
Flour
Eggs (100 g flour for every egg)

We used 600 g of flour to ensure leftovers. This was our mistake because using the pasta maker is a time consuming process and the pasta was dry before we were able to roll it out, therefore, some of our noodles were ruined because we could not get them thin enough. I would suggest not using more than 300 or 400 g of flour at a time.

Mix the flour and eggs together by kneading until they are one consistency. Roll a portion of the mixture into a ball and flatten with a rolling pin. Using a pasta maker, flatten the pasta to the thickness you need. Since we wanted lasagna/ravioli noodles, we kept the pasta in one flat sheet.

Filling
2 lb spinach
1 large container ricotta cheese (almost a kilo/2 lbs)
1 small container grated parmesan (5 oz)
2 eggs

Saute the spinach for 5-10 minutes, until cooked but not too small. Put cooked spinach in a large bowl and add ricotta cheese and parmesan cheese. Stir. Break eggs in bowl and mix well.

Making the ravioli
For Christmas we were given a fancy ravioli maker which we put to good use. Basically, the process involves using a special tool to make an indention in the noodle, placing the filling in the indent, placing another noodle on top, and finally using a special mold to push the noodles together and make the ravioli shape.

To cook, boil hot water and place ravioli in slightly salted water for about 5 minutes. For sauce, used melted butter and sage.

Unfortunately, since some of our dough dried out we ended up with a ridiculously disproportionate noodles to filling ratio. So...we brainstormed, checked our pantries and then made...lasagna! This is a much easier way to use this wonderful pasta filling for all you out there who are not the make-your-own-pasta-noodle type. Make the same filling, cover the bottom of a pyrex dish with filling, place noodles on top, and continue alternating between filling and noodles until you reach the top of the dish. Add a touch of salt and pepper, and feel free to toss some dried sage and butter in there as well! Cook at 400 degrees for 40 minutes.

You know what they say...when life hands you lemons...make lasagna!