Goat Cheese Ravioli and Homemade Marinara

Alright, it's spring break and I have been taking cooking new dishes more seriously lately so I set some goals for myself. One goal was to make my own pasta, and another was to make something with goat cheese(that's not really a new ingredient, I just really like it). So I accomplished both in one dish.

I'll start with the pasta dough:

3 cups flour
2 eggs
olive oil
salt
water

Beat eggs, add about a tbsp olive oil, about 3 tbsp water, pinch of salt.
In large bowl, put egg mixture on top of flour and start mixing the piss out of it with your hands. I've read you really have to knead pasta dough for it to be right, so go to town for about 10 minutes. I had to add a little extra water to get to stick together. Then wrap it up and stick it in the fridge while you start the sauce...

Marinara:

1 big can crushed tomatoes
1 regular can diced tomatoes
1 onion
garlic
olive oil
"italian" sorts of seasonings

Chop the onion and like 5-6 or so cloves of garlic (i've treid to over do it, but can't seem to add too much garlic). Saute in olive oil until soft-ish. Add some seasonings like basil, oregano, whatever seems right, maybe crushed red pepper for some zip. Then add all the tomatoes. Let it heat up, taste, season, taste, season, etc. Pretty simple.

Ravioli:

1 package goat cheese
1/2 cup parmesean cheese
basil
pasta dough
egg

Mix together the goat cheese, parm, and basil. That's the filling. Then, flour a surface and start rolling out half of the dough. Get it as thin as you can, this part is tough. Then use something to cut out uniform pieces. Do the same with the other half and you have the tops and bottoms of the ravs. Stick about a spoonful of filling in the middle and brush some eggwash around the edges to stick the top on. Then use a fork to crease the edges and ensure a solid stick-together. This made 8 huge ravs for me. Boil in salted water for about 6 minutes in batches.

This recipe was awesome, but time consuming. I would recommend it for a weekend dinner if you are trying to impress someone.

Alright, time to watch jurasic park.

Later.