Homemade Ravioli

For Valentine's Day a few years ago (back when he was still trying to impress me), Doug took a cooking class so he could make me a fancy Valentine's Day dinner.  At the class, he learned how to make lobster ravioli, and he did actually make it for me on Valentine's Day (I heard that most of the guys in the class didn't end up making the meal for their ladies, so I felt pretty lucky!).  It was pretty darn delicious.  We have modified the recipe a little, and have continued to make it at home periodically.  It takes some time, so now that we have Drew, we only really make it on the weekends when we have more time to cook.  We made it this last Sunday, and it sure was delicious!

What you need:

• Won ton wrappers - we buy a 12 oz. package at Wal-Mart

• Filling ingredients - this can be whatever you want.  Obviously, it was lobster on Valentine's day, but now we usually use chicken, mushrooms, cheese, and a little milk.  We've also added spinach.  You can get as creative as you want here.
• Bowl of water
• Discard bowl
• Cookie sheet, or something to put the finished raviolis on
• Pizza cutter

First, we cook up what we want for the filling of our ravioli.  This time, we used chicken (one chicken breast), mushrooms (a small package of fresh mushrooms), an Italian cheese blend (as much cheese as you like), and a little milk.  You want to cut the filling ingredients into pretty small pieces so that it will fit in a ravioli.

Then comes the work, you take one won ton wrapper and wet the edges of it.  I usually just wet my finger, using the water bowl, and trace the outline of the square won ton.  Then, you put the filling in the middle, and grab another won ton wrapper.  Put the wrapper on top of the one with the filling, and press down on the outside edges where the water was.  The water should make the wrappers stick together, and then you will have a square full of filling.  We use a pizza cutter to cut off the corners of the ravioli to make them more round, and discard the scraps in the discard bowl (this is a step that you wouldn't necessarily have to do if you didn't want to). 

 

 

 

You continue that process until you have used up all of your won ton wrappers or until your filling is gone.  We ended up with 26 ravioli (which was all of the won ton wrappers).

Then, you just boil the ravioli like you would any noodle.  It only takes a couple minutes to cook.  I bet we boil our ravioli for five minutes at the most.

We only made 14 of the ravioli, so we had seven each this time, and we'll have six each next time.  One of the great things about this meal is that it feeds us twice, and although the first time it makes a big mess, the second, there's hardly any clean up!

When Doug made it for me for Valentine's Day, he also made a homemade pasta sauce that was really good, but when we make it at home we don't use any sauce.  It sounds strange, and it looks weird, but it really makes it so you're able to taste the flavor of the filling.  However, you could certainly use a pasta sauce if you'd like.

There you have it.  It's not the most pretty food when it's done, but boy does it taste good.  The won ton wrappers give it a different consistency than a regular noodle, which I really like.  Give it a try, and let me know what you think!