homemade spinach ravioli

for our first christmas together a few years ago, jordan gave me a beautiful, authentic fire-engine red pasta maker.  we have gotten a lot of good use out of it, but i never remember to document the hours-long event that is making a homemade pasta dinner. a pasta maker is a great investment...you can really tell the difference between pasta from a box and pasta from scratch.  if you put the time in, you will see that it is worth it.

each time we have made pasta, we have always used either the spaghetti or linguine settings.  this time, we wanted to make homemade ravioli instead.  the results were magnificent, and now i'll share the process with you all!

making the dough is not as hard as you think...you just need semolina flour, salt, a little water, some olive oil and a couple of eggs (the best recipes are the simplest ones!)  we always use semolina flour from bob's red mill because it has the best recipe for pasta dough that we've tried.

combine 1 1/2 cups of semolina and 1/2 tsp salt and place on a flat, clean, dry surface.  make a well in the center of the flour and add 2 beaten eggs, 2 tbsp of water and 2 tbsp of olive oil to the well.  using a fork, gently begin to incorporate the flour into the well, starting around the edge of the well and making your way out.  once the dry and wet ingredients are incorporated, begin to knead the dough.

continue to knead for about 10 minutes or so, until the dough is elastic.  then set the dough aside after wrapping in saran wrap.  let rest for 20 minutes.  while the dough is resting, get to work on the ravioli filling.  we used frozen chopped spinach, cooked and drained well, combined with ricotta, garlic and salt.  easy and delicious.  combine to taste, and set aside.

once the dough is ready, roll it out flat and cut in half to begin to process through the pasta maker.

now comes the fun part!  first, roll each half of the dough through the widest setting on the pasta maker 10 times.  between each turn, sprinkle the dough with a little bit of flour, fold in thirds, then pass through with the open side facing downwards.

uno...

due...

tre!

once each half has been through 10 times, roll each half through again, changing the setting each roll from the widest to the thinnest.  (usually for cut pasta, we stop at the narrowest setting before cutting into the noodles.  however, since we were making ravioli, we wanted the dough to be a little thicker to be able to withstand the filling.  if you're in doubt, consult the instructions on your pasta maker.)

 since we didn't have a ravioli cutter (they do exist, however!) we used its bigger, more hulky cousin, a pizza wheel, to cut the dough into rectangles.

we put a little dab of the ricotta mixture in the center of each rectangle, then placed another rectangle on top.  using a fork we gently pressed the edges together to seal.

bring a very large pot of salted water to a gentle boil.  drop in about 5 ravioli at a time, and cook for less than a minute (they will float to the top when they're finished).  

look how precious they are!

 i was so pleased with how this little italian dinner came out.  we served ours with sauteed halved baby portobello mushrooms with red sauce, but i think it would be great with just a little drizzle of oil and some cheese on top too!

mangia!