Home Made Ravioli

Today for lunch, I made homemade ravioli served with marinara sauce.  It was SO DELICIOUS!!  Even the kids were begging for more.  They were a bit of work.  However, it worked out much cheaper than the freezer burned ones I can get at our local store.  Plus, I know exactly what went into them!  Here is the recipe for my homemade pasta and a quick tutorial for making raviolis.

2 cup               all purpose flour (plus some to flour the board)

½ tsp                salt

2                      beaten eggs

1/3 cup            water

1 tsp                oil

In a large mixing bowl stir together flour and salt.  Combine eggs, water and oil.  Form a well into the flour mixture and pour the egg mixture into it.

Mix well.

Turn the dough out onto a floured board. 

Knead the dough for 8 minutes.  It will become smooth and elastic.

Dough can be refrigerated for up to three days.

Roll dough out to desired thickness and shape.

Cook until no longer doughy in the middle.  Or, dry and store in an air tight container.

Now for the photo tutorial….

Flour mixture with the well in the middle, pour the egg mixture right in the middle.

I just mixed the whole thing with my hands.  Once it forms a nice ball, turn it out onto the floured surface.  Wash your hands and get ready for your arm exercise for the day!!

Knead for 8 minutes.  Whew!

Let the dough rest for a bit while you make your filling.  I used homemade ricotta, mozzarella, fresh shredded parmesan, and fresh shredded Romano.

Now it’s time to roll out that dough.  Cut the dough ball into quarters.  I used my trusty Atlas pasta roller.  If you don’t have one of these, a rolling pin will work just fine.  You want the dough fairly thin, but not to the point it will rip when you work with it.  I went to a level 5 on my pasta roller.

Next put a spoonful of filling spaced evenly on your pasta dough.  Wet the edges and fold over or put the top layer of dough on.  We used a fork to press the edges closed.  Be careful not to puncture the pocket with the filling in it.  If you do, your filling will come out in the boiling water. 

Lesson learned….don’t stack the ravioli.  I had to carefully pry all the ravioli apart after I told my daughter she could stack them.  They stuck to each other pretty well.

When you are ready to cook, get a nice big pot of water boiling on the stovetop.  I put salt and a little butter in my water.  It helps to prevent it from boiling over, and prevents the pasta from sticking to each other.

Once the water is at a full rolling boil, gently drop the ravioli into the water one at a time.  I only cooked five or six at a time to keep them from sticking.  You know they are done when they have been floating at the top of the water for a minute or two.  I think I cooked mine for maybe 5 minutes.

Remove the ravioli with a slotted spoon.  Add in the next batch while you dish up the done ones.  I topped them with marinara and more shredded parmesean cheese.

One batch of dough made 19 rather large ravioli.  I’m sure we could have been much more efficient in our cutting/shaping of the ravioli and gotten a few more.  I ate three personally, and that was enough for me to not be hungry.  I probably could have eaten one more. 

Our Adventure in Self-Sustainability

My family is embarking on an adventure of self-sustainability. We are going to try and become as self-sustainable as possible within the range of our abilities.

What is self-sustainable? Well, for some it means living in a tent in the woods completely independent from culture and society as we know it. This is not the self-sustainability that we are looking for. I am way too comfortable with a few of modern society's conventions.

I'm not giving up my car. I live in a very rural community. The nearest larger grocery store is 45 minutes away. My husband's commute to work is 45 minutes one direction. My longest commute is 15 minutes one direction. None of these distances sound reasonable on a bike for me. I am, however, committed to trying to walk and bike within our small community as much as I reasonably can.

I'm not giving up internet. Ah, internet, I think this is the one modern convenience that is a guilty pleasure for me. I simply depend on the wondrous amounts of information at my fingertips. How do I make/do something? Head to the internet!

You will still see me at our grocery store. Gardening is the one area that I am really struggling with. I *want* to be a good gardener. I *want* to provide my family with healthy home grown food. The one year I was successful in growing a garden, I grew Barbie food. Seriously, I grew fully ripened green bell peppers that would fit on a quarter. Fully ripened carrots were smaller than my pinkie. It was sad. I’m not giving up though. I have my lovely container garden going on the back porch this year. My little fledgling starts are planted and watched over. We shall see if we actually get any food from them in a few weeks. We do try to purchase from local farmers as much as possible. I hope to increase those purchases and decrease the purchases from commercial producers even further.

We are trying to minimize our purchases and pay off our debts. We are looking at one large purchase in the next few months. I have my eye on a piece of property that I believe would be a great little homestead for us. A few financial things have to fall into place, and then we can make it work. For now, we will continue to learn and grow on our little slice of neighborhood.

So, I hope you will join me. Follow my adventures in learning to become more self-sufficient in our modern world. I’ll be talking about homemade, homegrown, and community living. Sometimes the commercial alternative may be the best choice, but I hope that I can find sustainable alternatives to as many things as possible.

Do you have a topic you would like to see a post about? Comment! I’ll see what I can learn and share about it.

Multnomah Falls Hiking Trip

My family loves to hike. I thought I would share some of our adventures here along with all the recipes.

Our latest hike was to Multnomah Falls. This was such a breathtaking place to go. It was a bit crowded with people. That normally isn't one of our favorite things. Today it wasn't that bad. I know I heard at least five different languages being spoken around us as we climbed the trail.

My daughter is the wonder photographer for all of our trips. It means we get some really great shots of nature, lots of close up flowers, and maybe one or two pictures of her brothers.

A quick family pic taken by my hubby.

This was a lovely little waterfall we saw as we climbed up the trail to the stone bridge.

The view from the stone bridge was beautiful!

I just love her eye for a photograph.

This was an interesting little hole in the side of the cliff. It just begged for a photo!

Finally, a photo of hubby and I together!

After our trip to Multnomah Falls, we went on to a friend's house. Our daughter had a field day taking pictures in their flower garden.

If you would like to see more of her photos, head to her blog at PinkMenace New Camera

Hot Spinach Artichoke Dip

Oh my goodness, this dip is heavenly! I am quite willing to skip all the other dishes from dinner, and just eat this. It is very rich and oh so good. I rough chopped the artichoke hearts, so we had nice big chunks of them in the dip. I liked it that way. However, if you don't want big bites of artichoke, you can easily chop them a bit more before putting them in the dip.

Ingredients:

1 (8oz) package of cream cheese

4 cups artichoke hearts drained (chopped)

2 ½ cups chopped spinach (or as much as you like)

½ cup parmesan cheese shredded

2 cloves garlic finely minced

1 teaspoon of dried basil

2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese

Topping:

½ cup shredded parmesan cheese

1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

Directions:

Allow cream cheese to come to room temperature. Cream together cream cheese, garlic, parmesan cheese and basil. Mix in artichoke hearts, spinach, and mozzarella cheese. Mix until well blended. Pour into well greased deep dish 9 inch square pan, top with mozzarella and parmesan cheese. Bake at 350*F for approximately 25 minutes or until top is browned. Keep an eye on it, all ovens are different. Serve with toasted antipasto bread.

Super Easy Quiche

This is a recipe I come back to all the time.  Yes, it uses a mix.  If you want to make your own biscuit mix and use it, I'm sure it would work.  This is a great recipe for leftovers.  It is a family favorite and completely flexible according to what I have in the fridge. It reheats well, and you can freeze it once it's been cooked.

Ingredients
3 eggs
1/2 C Bisquick Baking Mix
1 1/2 C milk
1/2 tsp salt

Mix all ingredients together. Using a blender works very well to mix and not end up with any lumps. Pour this into a well greased loaf pan. (If making a double batch a 9x13 baking dish is about right.)  I always make a double batch for our family of 6.  It usually leaves us with a little leftover.  My kids eat pretty small portions though.

Now the fun part!
You will need about 1 cup meat. Any kind will do. I've used chicken, sausage, burger, pepperoni, ham, and even bacon. Or you can leave the meat out if you want. I've only ever used cooked meat in this recipe. I'm not sure how raw would turn out. The cook time is long enough, I would think it would be fine.

You will also need about 1 cup of vegetables. Most kinds work well. If they have a strong flavor (like broccoli) a little goes a long way. The only thing I've found that we didn't like was brussel sprouts.....those got weird.

Now for the cheese! You will use anywhere from 1 cup to 2 cups of cheese. Any kind I have tried was fantastic. I suppose you could leave the cheese out...but why?

Put your meat, vegetables, and cheese right into the liquid in the pan. Tap everything down so the liquid covers it.

Bake at 350*F for about 45 minutes. (Double batch takes considerably longer but I haven't timed it exactly.) The quiche is done when a knife inserted into the middle comes out clean.

Enjoy and Experiment! I'd love to hear about any combinations you find that are really good. I'd also love to hear if you find a particular ingredient that just didn't do so well.