Homemade Spinach Feta Ravioli

We must have eaten pasta three or four times this week. No, I'm not carbo-loading for another race. Thank goodness! We just had a lot of leftover pasta dough from last weekend's pasta making and I had to use it up. Just for your information, 1 1/2 lbs of flour and 7 large eggs makes a heck of a lot of pasta! Luckily the pasta keeps well and will last up to two weeks if stored properly.

My very first homemade pasta was cannelloni. My second pasta was last weekend's linguini. This is my third time making pasta and I decided to try ravioli. I went for the basic square kind since it was my first attempt at filling them. Next time, I might use a cookie cutter and get a little playful. I had no time this week to experiment much because of other work commitments.

As it turns out, it's actually very easy and fairly fast to make ravioli. The most time consuming part was rolling the pasta through the pasta maker. Once I finished rolling a strip, I would cut it into rectangles, fill each rectangle and then fold and seal it over into a square. I didn't bother covering the finished pasta. I just floured them well and worked fast. The squares I filled probably had sides measuring around 1 1/2 to 2 inches.

I started with a ball of pasta dough and it took me maybe 1 1/2 hours to prepare the filling, roll the pasta (to thickness 8), fill them, cook them, and create the sauce to serve it with. It was enough to feed the three of us for two days. But my 3 year old boy eats like half a person :) On first bite, it was instant love from both my husband and 3 year old. I liked it too :)

Homemade Spinach Feta Ravioli
Serves 5-6

1 lb of fresh pasta (homemade or bought)

Filling

300 g pack of frozen spinach, thawed and drained
180g of feta, crumbled
1/2 tsp dry dill (more if using fresh dill)
1/4 tsp nutmeg

Sauce and Flavoring

2 tbsp olive oil
2 small onions (or 1 large onion), thickly sliced
1 pint grape tomatoes, sliced in half
1/4 cup reserved pasta liquid or water
4 g chicken stock cube, crumbled
1 tsp sugar
salt/pepper to taste

Mix filling well and set aside. Fill pasta with filling any way you like but be careful not to over fill. I had about 1/2 cup of filling leftover when I used all my pasta. Flour each ravioli well before stacking them. When done, cook ravioli in salted boiling water for about 5 minutes. Drain and rinse.

Heat olive oil in large frying pan or wok. Fry onions until translucent. Add chicken stock cube, water, sugar and cook for a couple of minutes. Add tomatoes last. Add ravioli and coat well in the sauce and flavorings. Turn off heat and let it sit. Serve with a bit of Parmesan if you wish.