Spinach and Ricotta Ravioli

Last night I made spinach and ricotta ravioli for dinner, mainly to use up ingredients from dinner earlier in the week. Ravioli is good like that, you can pretty much put in any filling that you like and it gets wrapped up in pasta goodness! I actually learnt to make ravioli in food tech when I was in year ten in high school, which I remember to be hugely successful pasta adventure... unlike my attempt to make chocolate pasta, which was disastrous to say the least. Anyway I remember it being something quick and simple that was easily achieved in a 45min class. I hadn't actually made ravioli since high school until last night. And last night I discovered that it is a hugely time consuming process and it took me 1.5hrs to make dinner. Now that I think back, in school we probably made the pasta dough one week, then froze it and made the ravioli the following week.... If you want to make ravioli and do not want it to be some time consuming you could do the same and make the pasta dough in advance, or you could buy fresh lasagne sheets from the shop - then you can make the filling and shape the pasta but not have to do the mixing, kneading, resting and rolling which is quite time consuming. If you have plenty of time on your hands and want to make your pasta from scratch see my previous post for a recipe.  Here is the recipe for ravioli:

Ingredients ~ 

• fresh pasta - a serve for one person
• 1/4 bunch spinach
• 1/3 cup ricotta
• 1/4 brown onion, finely diced
• olive oil
• salt and pepper to taste

To Make ~

• Fry the onion in a little olive oil until soft and translucent
• Wilt the spinach leaves
• Combine the onion, spinach, ricotta and salt and pepper to taste in a small bowl. 
• Roll out the pasta so it is extremely thin - the second thinnest setting on a pasta roller. You want your ravioli to be translucent. If you are using lasagne sheets you can roll them out thinner with a rolling pin if necessary. 
• Cut the pasta into squares that are about 4cm by 4cm. 
• Put a tspn of mixture in the centre of the pasta square and then fold the square to make a triangle. Press the pasta together tightly so it seals. Also fold in the corners of the triangle to make sure no mixture leaks out of these. 
• Repeat with remaining pasta and mixture. 
• Once all the ravioli is made boil some water, add a sprinkle of salt to the water and then the ravioli. It should take 4-5mins to cook depending on how thin you have rolled the pasta. 
• Serve with sauce of your choice - Nathan made a delicious tomato and carrot sauce to go with ours. 

Folding the pasta takes practice and patience. Towards the end I ran out of patience and they are oddly shaped and some are massive. Of course once the sauce was added I couldn't find any of the pretty ones to take a photo of. But even the ugly ones still taste good :)