Homemade Raviolis

Our family  when we grew up was not really into traditional Christmas. I like it that way, but we did usually always have a nice meal of raviolis, homemade, if we could make them.

Some people when I would tell them we had raviolis for Christmas dinner would wrinkle their nose and say “Eeeww!” as the only ones they have had are canned ones! I have actually never had them, but the smell is enough….. Then there are a few people who really dislike them because they would prefer meat filling, or something else and we usually just make cheese as it is easiest.

I should have taken pictures, as it is a fun process. I have bought my own ravioli form now to go with my  pasta machine roller from Atlas so now I can try out new fillings and will take pictures of myself sometime!

I make the  pasta dough. I realized the other day the homemade pasta dough must have quite a bit of protein in it, because it has alot of eggs. It is mostly just eggs and flour with  a very small amount of oil, like 1/2-1 T. After it is made, I wrap it in plastic wrap and let it rest for 10-20 minutes.

I made about 6 balls of dough, I think.  You slice the dough into slices and roll very thin with the pasta roller. We do not do it as thin as you can get it for ravioli as it tends to make holes, but instead of going to a 9 thickness, we do a 5 or 6.

It is a two person job as one person feeds and guides the long sheet of dough out while one turns the crank. We then hand it off to the next person who places it on the ravioli form, fills, rolls it and cuts them. We filled them all with cheese filling which was ricotta, romano cheese, with eggs and spices. I like the meat filling really well myself with spinach!

After this we place them on cookie sheets lined with wax paper and coated with flour and layer them on there. We then put the trays in the freezer to freeze until solid and then remove them to ziplock bags.

It is labor intensive, but  so many traditions are. I think that it is a great thing to do if you have time to do it, but sometimes like other traditions it gets set aside because people are more important. I think at Christmas time it is important to remember, that like every other time of the year the most important thing.  We need to remember to the two greatest commandments, Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and Love your neighbor as yourself.  I think when  so many things in Christmas  get to be so important, the traditions of having to get someone a gift  or a tradition of not celebrating Christmas, making raviolis or cookies,  or others, you fill in the blank. We can forget that these are the two greatest commandments. Our neighbor may be the one who wronged us,  they may go out of their way to make us feel bad or so we think.

Are there people in your family or friends whom you can think of like that? How can we give the gift of following the 2 greatest commandments this year?  Can we not put all the traditions of men above the commandments of God this year and go to this New Year with a better  tradition of following His commands and not our ideas of how something should be!

Give a gift  this year, enjoy the traditions your family has, but think in it all what is the most important and keep your eyes on what is right.