Learning How to Make Ravioli

A few months ago, I bought a pasta maker at a thrift store for under $10. I was stoked at the idea of making homemade pasta. I honestly didn't care too much about noodles because cost wise (and labor) it didn't seem worth it to make it. However, now that I have the machine, I'm seeing how worth it is! 

When I bought the machine, I wanted to make ravioli. That is worth the time and money saved compared to store bought. However, after looking at a lot of instruction online, I feel there's a few things missing when it comes to making the ravioli. 

I found that making the dough in my stand mixer was easiest. When it's done, I put it in a bread bag to sit for an hour and also when I'm working with the dough (Photo A).

When you are ready to go, I take a fist size amount of dough to work with. Then I take my mesh strainer and sift flour onto my work space and into the ravioli tray. Sprinkle it liberally everywhere. It helps so the ravioli doesn't stick in the tray. When you freeze the ravioli, you can dust off excess flour when they're frozen. 

When I first started making pasta, I thought it was silly that you had to roll through 1-6 to make the pasta. Why couldn't you go to a thin setting and be done? Now I know. It's not just about getting the dough thin, it's about getting the dough to be in a nice rectangle shape and to make sure it's floured thoroughly for the finished product. 

So, roll your dough through each setting, folding the dough into thirds in between each set. This is how it should go through each set: 

1. On setting 1, roll your dough through, after its floured enough so it doesn't feel sticky. 

2. Fold into thirds. (Photo B)

3. Rub your fingers over your work surface with your fingers closed and gather flour in between your digits and rub over each side of the dough so that the dough doesn't feel sticky. (Photo C) 

It should resemble photo D. You just want to rub the flour onto the surface of the dough, not into it.

4. Run it through on setting 1 again, running the dough through the opposite way (on the bias).

5. Complete each setting through 5, keeping the dough floured and rectangle. 

To make the ravioli, I highly recommend using a ravioli tray. I found mine at TJ Max. I use Ravioliera- con mattarello- 26cm. (Photo 1)

1. Sift flour onto the tray (Photo 2)

2. Place your first dough that you pressed on the floured tray (Photo 3)

3. At this point, you do not need to press the dough into the tray. If your dough is a bit narrow in some places, you manually stretch it. Fill each "space" with a heaping half teaspoon of filling. (Photo 4)

4. Run another batch of dough through the machine and place over the filling. (Photo 5) 

5. Lightly sift flour over the top dough. (Photo 6)

6. With a rolling pin, gently roll the dough. Gradually increase pressure (so you don't squirt filling out) until the dough gets cut with the tray ridges. 

7. Extra dough can be cut off and used again- just put it In a bag so it doesn't dry out. 

8. Place freezer paper on a metal cookie pan and either flip the ravioli onto it or dig each one out individually. I use a commercial size cookie sheet because it fits my freezer perfectly. 

9. When you have the sheet filled up, place in the freezer for an hour until frozen. Place ravioli into freezer bags. 

I hope this helps a fellow beginning pasta  maker out. It takes quite a bit of practice, so be patient. To fill up this one cookie sheet takes me about an hour to do solo. 

Good Luck! 

Epic Cooking day = Epic Mess

Today was one of those epic cooking days. As I'm sitting here tonight, I can't help but be a bit disappointed. In all my success today was a lot of failure too. Don't worry, I'm not down on myself, I just wish there was another Mandy to help. "Hey! Quit dawdling and pick up all that junk on the floor. Then go rotate everybody's summer/winter clothes! Then when you're done with that, the toilet is STILL smelling pretty funky."

This morning I decided I was going to get shit done! By that, I mean I was going to get a lot of the cooking done I've had on my to-do list. Don't get me wrong, I've done a lot of cooking lately. A lot of preserving. I've made 4 batches of homemade spaghetti sauce so far this fall among other things. 

Yesterday, I went out and bought 10 pounds of bananas. Sounds like my family's going to be backed up for a while, right? Nah, my husband offered for payment to my kids' Taekwondo teacher (his Krav Maga instructor) my awesome cooking skills as payment for the classes. So, not only is my family flying through my awesome banana bread, so is the teacher. 

While I am thrilled (in most moments) we can have an awesome exchange, I cursed all day that I only have 2 bread loaf pans. My oven could fit four, but unfortunately I only have two.  We're not spending any extra money right now, which means I have to do things the hard way sometimes. So that means I am left with making a batch, waiting an hour, wash all baking/mixing bowls, and then doing it again. And then again. And then again. I washed that stupid mixing bowl 6 times today. Along with all the other stuff. 

Victory at the end! I get it all done, make a killer dinner from scratch, complete with my homemade sweet dinner rolls and I see that clean mixing bowl staring at me. 

I swear it spoke to me, "You know, Mandy, you bought that pasta roller from the thrift store over there. Then you bought the semolina flour. You have time. Make some pasta. If you make enough, you can even try it with the dinner you're waiting on tonight. C'mon you know you want to get it done. You could cross off one more thing on your to-do list." 

So I whip it out. And wouldn't you know that was the moment when all the kids had to descend on me and bug the crap out of me? I call my person a two-butt kitchen. That's because only two butts fit! And I had my big butt and four little ones in there! 

We got a good start to it and I got quite a bit of pasta in the dehydrator.   I'm very excited to pair it with my homemade Alfredo sauce. Yum!

At this point your probably wondering why I still see any disappointment in my day. Well, I see tons of failures. My kitchen is a disaster, even though the dishwasher is ready to be unloaded in the morning. I failed in folding the 4 loads of clean laundry sitting downstairs. I failed to get the rest of the laundry downstairs, sorted, and started on. I failed in even remotely keeping up on the rest of the house today. All the kids seem to do an amazing job of just moving crap from a random spot in the house to another random spot. Today was no exception. My kids were also lovely enough to add any leftover food onto the floor they deemed not good enough to make it into their mouth . 

I would feel great about all the things I achieved today if not for all the things that keep piling up on top of the already-there messes.

Oh, by the way, did I mention I also made a batch of crockpot applesauce today???

My messy kitchen that will be the first thing I tackle in the morning. You can bet my family is eating cereal tomorrow!