Just your average sick day

Today was a sick day for me.  So you know...I rested some...Mike was amazing and let me sleep in this morning which helped so so much!  I rewarded him by making homemade ravioli!  Oh yes, I also made 6 more loaves of sourdough bread.  You know...just your average sick day, making pasta and bread from scratch.  

Ravioli is Mike's favorite pasta dish.  He was not disappointed!  I used a recipe for the pasta, but really its a pretty standard pasta recipe.  And I used my new perfect pasta flour from King Arthur Flour!  

So it was just 3 cups of flour and 4 eggs.  If you don't buy the pasta flour blend, you can buy semolina flour and do 2 c. of semolina and 1 c of all purpose flour  OR you could do 3 cups of all purpose flour although the texture is not the same.  

You could do the old fashion style and mix it on the counter with the well in the flour.  I prefer to use my food processor because it is less messy.  So just toss your flour and eggs in the food processor and pulse it together until it is well mixed.  Slowly add 3-5 Tbs of cold water while pulsing until it starts to come together.     

It should look something like this picture below:

Turn the dough out onto the counter top and knead it for about 5 minutes....ain't no pansy kneading allowed!  You can do it, put your back into it....seriously  though...you need to really knead it and knead it well!

After you knead it, form it into a oval or rectangle that is about an inch thick.  Wrap it in saran wrap and put it in the fridge for about an hour to rest!

Next, I broke out my trusty pasta roller attachment for my kitchenaid stand mixer.  The process is a bit tedious, but since I LOVE cooking, it is theraputic for me!  

Cut off a small piece of the pasta dough.  The square above should make about 5 sections to be rolled out.  Put some flour on your surface and roll out the section to about a quarter inch thick rectangle. 

If you don't have a pasta roller, you can use a rolling pin and roll it out.  you want it to be thin enough to just start to see light through it.  About the thickness of construction paper.

If you do have a pasta roller, set it on your widest/thickest setting and slowly run it through the pasta roller.  There are a lot of youtube videos and such out there that will teach you all the techniques on pasta rolling, the most encouraging thing I can say is that the more you do it, the more you know how.  Helpful...I know...you're welcome!  Once it goes through once, fold it in thirds and pass it through again.  Repeat this process about 4 more times on the same thickness.  Change the setting to one setting thinner and pass it through.  Change again and pass through.  Continue until you get to about a 5 (the thickness setting).  

Lightly flour both sides of the pasta and lay out on a big pan or cutting board or counter top.

For the filling, I took two chicken breasts and baked them until cooked through with a seasoning of kosher salt and Tuscan Seasoning (it is a seasoning grinder we got at sams...we LOVE it and use it on almost everything).  Once cooked, I ground it up in a food processor until it made a chicken meal sort of.  

Next I used the food processor to chop some fresh spinach.

Next I mixed in some granulated onion, garlic salt, 2 cups ricotta cheese, 1/2 c parmesan cheese, 1 c italian blend cheese, and about 1/4 cup of heavy cream...Mix it up thoroughly!

Scoop out the filling evenly spaced on the sheets of pasta.  Use a brush to brush some water around the filling on the pasta, just to moisten slightly and form a seal.  Fold down the sheet of pasta and press the pasta together around the filling.  You can either use a pizza cutter and cut it out in a square, or if you have a ravioli press you could use that.  I used a 2 inch biscuit cutter and cut them out. 

Lightly flour them so they don't stick together and put them in a dish to wait for you to cook them. I cooked them in two batches.  Boil a big pot of water and add about 1/4 c of kosher salt to the water.  Drop about 10-15 of the ravioli in the pot at a time...let them cook for about 2-3 minutes...they don't take long.  

While the water was coming to a boil, I put two sticks of butter and two cloves of garlic, finely diced, in a saute pan over low heat.  Let it melt and start to cook.  As it heats up the milk fat will separate from the butter and rise to the top as a white foam on top.  Use a spoon to remove that layer and continue to let the butter heat up and get darker in color.  

 

Use a fine mesh strainer and pour the butter through the strainer over the ravioli.  This will remove the big chunks of garlic and leave a nice clarified butter sauce!  

This platter was gone!  It was a hit with the family!  Oh, and I am not sure why, but dinner has turned into a fancy occasion...MK routinely changes into "nice" clothes for family dinner...I don't get it, but isn't she a cutie!!!

A side note about the sauce, you could do a different sauce, but there is a lot going on in the filling flavor wise, so i would keep whatever sauce you use simple.  

Pasta:

Ingredients:

3 cups pasta blend flour  (or the substitutions listed above)

4 large eggs

3-5 Tbs. cold water

Directions:

Pulse flour and eggs in food processor until mixed well.  Pour in water little by little while mixing until dough starts to come together.  Knead vigorously by hand for about 5 minutes.  Wrap with plastic and chill in the refrigerator for about an hour or so.   Roll out by hand or machine.  Use as needed for pasta and ravioli or whatever you need it for.

Filling for Ravioli:

Ingredients:

2 chicken breasts

1 cup fresh spinach

16 oz container ricotta

1 cup italian blend cheese

1/2 cup parmesan cheese

garlic salt to taste

granulated onion to taste

salt to taste

1/4 cup heavy cream

Directions:

Bake chicken seasoned with kosher salt and tuscan seasoning until cooked through.  Using a food processor grind up the chicken and put in a bowl.  Grind up the spinach and add to the chicken.  Add the rest of the ingredients and mix very well.  Use as filling in the ravioli.