#18 Ravioli from scratch

#18 on my 30 During 30 list was to learn how to make ravioli from scratch.  Of course the key here, which makes this a challenge, is that it would be gluten free ravioli.  Yeah, not so fun.  My mom got me this awesome set of pasta maker accessories that attach to my Kitchen Aid mixer (also from mom...  she's my best shopper!).  I have seen people use these to make nice, thin raviolis and was convinced I could get it to work for me.  Here's the thing, though.  Gluten is what makes doughs stretchy.  Without it, the only thing holding dough together are water, sometimes butter, and luck.  Jules gluten free flour, my favorite gluten free flour, has a few extra things in it to make it more gluten-like, but it still just doesn't cut it.  I followed her recipe, here.  She flat out says to roll out the dough, says nothing of the pasta maker.  I tried the pasta maker and had zero luck.  It just kind of shredded the dough.  I balled it back up and broke out the rolling pin and made my ravioli that way.  It was good, but too thick.  We'll see if I have the patience to try again.

Meanwhile, I chopped up all of my spinach from my CSA from two+ weeks ago, mixed it with ricotta, mozzarella, garlic salt, and some crushed red pepper flakes to make the filling.  I put a spoonful on the ravioli, made it a little top, and used my fingers to smoosh the dough together to create a seal.  (I'll use the rest of this filling for Stromboli filling, or, half-moons, which are half pizza, half Stromboli.)

My CSA had this mystery cooler on the edge of their stand this week and when I asked about it, they said that stuff was extra, so if I wanted some, I should grab a bag of ... BASIL!!!  My favorite.  I am growing gobs of basil, but they are no more than an inch tall in my garden, so I was stoked to have some early season basil to make pesto.  My pesto recipe can be found here, but I no longer measure anything, just throw stuff in the food processor and go for it.

Here were my results (I literally took pictures of the spinach mixture without the memory card in.  I'm a smart one):

Thick and not very friendly dough rolled out.

My only perfect ravioli.

Bad lighting + poor photographer = ugly picture of beautiful food.

I just had to lay out all of my veggie and fruit share food I got this week to show you how great my share has been.  What an incredibly huge amount of vegetables!  Scarlet turnips, beets, garlic, chard, collards, spicey lettuce mix, peas, basil, and bing cherries!