My Ravioli Adventure - Day 4

All this talk about ravioli has made me have a huge craving for it! My husband has been out of town and I decided this a.m. to have a nice dinner waiting for him. So, I went out and bought some wonton wrappers and decided to do the shortcut method at first and work my way up.

I started off by making the filling. I began by mincing one onion, a handful of baby carrots, and celery. I also added in 1/2 bag of frozen spinach that I had thawed and squeezed to get rid of excess water. Once I had finished mincing everything (using the Ultimate Chopper that my Dad gave me), I put them into a large pot with a little olive oil. I let the vegetables saute and added in garlic, pepper, basil and parsley. Once the vegetables were soft, I added two lbs. of ground beef (90/10). Usually, I use less ground beef but I wanted to have a little more flavor in the filling. I put a lid on the pot and let the ground beef cook while occasionally stirring it and breaking it up into small pieces. Once the beef was cooked through, I drained everything and let it cool.

In a large bowl, I combined two packages of cream cheese and 1/2 container ricotta cheese. I added 1 cup of Pecorino Romano cheese to the mix as well and then added the beef mixture to the bowl. I thoroughly mixed everything together to incorporate all the ingredients. It smelled so good!

I took a cookie sheet and spread cornmeal on the bottom of the sheet. I took two wonton wrappers and used my pastry brush to brush them with water so that I could seall the ravioli. Next, I took a teaspoon of filling and put it in the center of the first wonton wrapper. I soon realized that you really just need 1/2 teaspoon. You can eyeball it but if you put too much, the wrapper will split. Next, put the second wonton wrapper on top and work to gently seal the ravioli while removing any air - air will cause the ravioli to burst in the boiling water. Once I sealed the ravioli, I used a fluted bisquit cutter and cut out my individual ravioli. This was very time consuming but I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it! I used two packages of wonton wrappers which made two cookie sheets full of ravioli. I did make a mini ravioli for taste and it was pretty yummy. I hope my family enjoys them tonite with the homemade meatballs I made.