Delicious, delicious, delicious!  Last time I did it, it was on a whim as the main goal was actually butternut ravioli.  Although in the end the spinach ravioli tasted tons better.  Basically this recipe can be substituted for almost any type of filling that you want, I’d assume.  Primarily what doesn’t change is the pasta part of the ravioli.  Also, the pasta part can double as just a plain egg noodle if you want just egg noodles (instead of cutting it in circular shapes you can just slice the egg noodle however you want and boil it for 5-8 minutes).

Oh, and it’s extremely time consuming, so set aside a good afternoon to do this and you WON’T regret it!

Ingredients:

Noodle —

3 eggs (or egg equivalent)*

3 cups white all-purpose flour*

1/4 cup (or so) water

3 tbsp. olive oil*

*If you want to yield more or less of the noodle, reduce all of this by one (ex: 2 eggs, 2 cups flour, 2 tbsp. olive oil; 4 eggs, 4 cups flour, 4 tbsp. olive oil)

Spinach Stuffing —

4 ounces fresh leaf spinach

approx. 4 ounces mushrooms (optional)

approx. 4 ounces mixed cheese (optional)

Yields approximately 25 ravioli

Steps with some helpful pictures:

1. Shred cheese.  I did a mixture of feta cheese, mozzarella, and cheddar jack cheese.  You can probably buy it already shredded, excluding the feta, but I like to shred it myself as it is fun to do.

2. Cook spinach. I do this for 1-2 minutes, just enough to rinse off the spinach and make it wet instead of dry so that it is easier to work with. You can use the pot again if you rinse it.

3. After spinach is cooked you can drain it and spread it out on a cutting board/table/plate, etc. to let it cool.  You’ll be handling the spinach a bit later after it has cooled, so the more you can drain it and spread it out the better.

4. Mix the ingredients for the noodles.  You’ll be mixing the flour, eggs, olive oil, and water into a large container.  The mixture is suppose to be sticky so depending on your consistency you might need less or more water.  I also substitute eggs for egg beaters as it is the healthier option for people with cholesterol issues.

5. Spread out the dough.  You’ll need to put down flour on the table/wax paper/cutting board.  Spread out some of the dough (maybe 1/4 or 1/2 of the dough) with a rolling pin until about 1/8 inch thickness.  In all reality, as long as it isn’t super thick or super thin and falling apart it should be alright.

6. Cut out ravioli size pieces. I use a plastic cup that is about 3-4” diameter.

7. Separate the extra dough from the ravioli cuts. This is easier said than done some times. If it doesn’t separate you probably didn’t press down hard enough on the cup/whatever you’re using to cut the circles.  You can try to separate it, but I found it is easier to start over.

8. Put cuts on separate plate/cutting board. This is an important step because up until this point you’ve been working on either the mix or the dough, after you have done your first set of stuffing the ravioli with the mix you will be multi-tasking and need the cuts out of your way so that you have a stuffing place and a cutting place.  I prefer to have the cuts on a cutting board ontop of a side table that I can easily move to the stove—primarily because my parents’ kitchen is small and there is no space next to the stove to put the cuts.

9. Mix spinach with cheese and mushrooms. Simply put, mix ‘em together.  I recommend using mushroom cuts and cutting them up super small (I just split them with my hands but I guess you can dice them or something).

10. Stuffing ravioli. Easier said then done, believe me. You can’t stuff it too full because things will fall out of the ravioli.  So here’s what I go by—about half to a full tablespoon of mix, make sure there is more spinach than cheese and mushroom bits.  Put the stuffing in the middle of the ravioli cuts.  This is why I have the cuts spread out so I can stuff a whole bunch at once.

11. Folding the stuffed ravioli.  Need to be careful with this because if it sticks to your hand there is a GREAT chance that it will fall apart.  You can press down on the edges with a fork (see picture below) or just mush it together. After you have it folded I leave it on the tray until it comes time to cook it.

12. Cook those suckers! About 4 minutes or so if you’re putting them in the fridge for later or freezing them (which you can do, see instructions later).  If you want to eat them right away I’d recommend 6-8 minutes or so, they’ll float to the top when they are completely ready like regular ravioli.

Finished product:

To store:

Refrigerate — I’d let them in there maybe a week tops.  You can reheat them for about 2 minutes or so in the microwave

Freeze — Let them cool off, put them into freezer safe bags, and put into the freezer.  You can either let them sit out to thaw or you can boil them like you do with regular frozen ravioli.  I haven’t really experimented with the frozen aspect (the one time I did, I did it on a whim and rather quickly and it turned out bad).

Nutritional facts (per myfitnesspal):

- Ravioli Noodle (per serving - 1): 43 calories, 9 carbohydrates, 2 protein, 0 fiber, 0 cholesterol, 12 sodium, 0 calcium, 2.4% iron

- Spinach Stuffing (per serving - 1): 67 calories, 1 carbohydrate, 6 protein, 0 fiber, 186 sodium, 3 calcium, 13 cholesterol, 17.6% vitamin A, 3.8% Vitamin C, 2.2% Iron

All of these pictures I took with permission from the cook, aka me.  :)