Raviolis with Three Cheeses

The girls love pasta and cheese, oh heck who am I kidding; I do too! I just recently started making my own pasta dough. I never had the chance to learn from my grandparents; they passed when I was young.

One day while perusing the aisles of Ross with my mom, we spotted a pasta-rolling machine for $19, my mom said, "You need that." Good enough reason I figured to start making my own dough. Did I forget to mention sometimes I have more ambition than sense? The day I decided to make these I also decided to make sauce and go back and forth to my daughter's cheer camp an hour away, twice.

Robbyn and I wanted to recreate my Grandpa's ravioli recipe, but the unappetizing gray didn't sit well with either of us; so cheese it is.

Egg Pasta Dough

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (or "00" flour if you can find it)

4 large eggs

1 tsp. salt
Semolina flour. for dusting pasta and surfaces

Combine flour, eggs and salt in food processor till a ball is formed. Cover with plastic wrap and let rest in the refrigerator for 30 minutes. You can do this step by hand, but come on; I already had a hard enough day.

When ready to roll, cut dough into 8 pieces, run through machine starting on 1, keep flouring your dough, up the dial 1 at a time and make 4 or 5 passes. Place sheets on floured silpats or floured kitchen towels to dry a little while you make filling.

Cheese Filling

4 ounces ricotta cheese

8 ounces shredded mozzarella cheese

1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1 large egg

1 tsp. dried parsley

1 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. freshly ground black pepper

1/8 tsp. freshly ground nutmeg

Combine cheeses, egg, parsley, salt, pepper and nutmeg in bowl. Fill pasta sheets by small teaspoonful, barely 1-inch apart and brush pasta dough along bottom and sides of each cheese mound with water to seal.

Fold dough back over and press along sides of each cheese mound with your fingers to seal. Cut with fluted pastry cutter or knife.  Place the finished ravioli on a baking sheet dusted with more flour or semolina and let dry for 30 minutes or so prior to boiling.

Bring a large pot of salted water to a vigorous boil and drop raviolis in two batches, cook each batch for 2-3 minutes.

I got about 4 dozen out of this recipe. I have a great Brandywine Marinara recipe you can use for these, click here if you'd like to give it a try.

Enjoy,

Gina