3 Cheese Ravioli

I made ravioli today. To be honest I made ravioli this week. I made the sauce on Thursday, the dough Saturday, and the finished product on Sunday. I would have had them done on Saturday but I forgot about the kickball game (yeah, I know we play every Saturday but I had pasta on my mind). They turned out ok but they were a little doughy. I think next time they need to be thinner and maybe a little smaller as they were jumbo ravioli. If I do it again I will do it with a pasta maker. Rolling it by hand was a bigger pain in the butt then was really necessary.

Pasta (From Alton Brown)

3 cups flour

2 eggs

3 tablespoons water

1 teaspoon olive oil

½ teaspoon salt

My dough was too dry and I ended up mixing together another egg and 1 teaspoon of water and adding that to the mix.

3 cheese filling (From Me)

15 oz ricotta cheese

¼ cup mozzarella cheese

¼ cup parmesan cheese

1 egg

1 teaspoon Italian seasoning (Mrs. Dash)

For the dough mix everything except the flour in a measuring cup. Pour the flour onto your work surface and make a well. Pour the wet ingredients into the middle of the well. Be careful not to overfill the well (believe me; you will have a very big mess if you do). Work the wet ingredients into the dough until you have a slightly tacky ball.

If you’re using a pasta maker cover the ball and let it rest in the fridge for an hour. If, like me you’re too cheap to buy a pasta maker (rethink this plan, someone you know must have a pasta maker…no, well good luck) hand knead it for 8 min or put it in your sister’s kitchen aid using the dough hook, then let it rest in the fridge for an hour. While that’s in the fridge resting mix together the ingredients for the cheese filling. When you’re done put that in the fridge with the dough to let it set a little.

Take the dough out and break it into balls. Roll the dough into long strips. This is not as easy as you would think. Try gently holding one end of the dough with your hand and rolling the rolling pin with the other hand. Do this until the dough is thin enough that you can see light through it when held up to the light (don’t give up, it will get there eventually, if I have the patience for it then you can do it too).

Plop little blobs of cheese filling in a row on top of the dough. Cut between each blob. Rub a little water along three sides of the square of dough and fold the dough over the blob. With your fingers push the sides together then do it again with the end of a fork. Then just cut the extra part off. Do this for all of the dough and you’re almost done. Make sure to put a little flour on the bottoms of the ravioli so they don’t stick together.

Cook the ravioli in boiling water. They are supposed to be done when they float to the top of the pot. I did not find that to be the case. After they started floating I took one out every once in a while and tested it.

Pour your favorite pasta sauce over them and enjoy. I would try this again but only if I had a pasta maker to work with. My ravioli were too big and the dough was too thick but when I find someone with a pasta maker they are willing to lend me I think I can fix them. For now I think I will stick to the store bought kind.

Peanut Butter Granola Bars

My sister told me she had too many walnuts so I could have some if I wanted a few. Free walnuts, heck yeah. What can I make that requires walnuts…. I made cookies last week and ate a few too many so I thought that I should try something slightly healthier this time. So I decided to make granola bars. I found a recipe in a cookbook called Perfect Light Desserts (they didn’t stay light long, I added a few things).


Not only was I making dinner for two nights but Liz had been talking to me so I was a little distracted and forgot to take pictures. I will have to take pictures next time I make them.

I changed the recipe a little to fit the fact that I am incredibly picky when it comes to things that are good for you. These are the ingredients that I used.

2 cups oatmeal
1 cup chopped walnuts
½ cup chocolate chips
½ cup peanut butter chips
2 large egg whites
⅓ cup vegetable oil
¾ cup brown sugar
¾ cup chunky peanut butter
1 teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon salt
I was going to add peanuts but I forgot to throw them in so this is the non peanut version (though I did use chunky peanut butter so a few peanuts did make it in).

Preheat the oven to 325º. Fill a pot of water with a little water (you’re going to use it as a double boiler so use just enough water so that it doesn’t touch the bottom of your bowl when the bowl is set on top of the pot). Line a 9 x 13 pan with tinfoil and spray it with Pam.


Combine the oats, nuts, and chips in a bowl. Combine all the other ingredients in a different heatproof bowl. Put this bowl over the boiling water stirring until the sugar is melted. Stir the two mixtures together and pour into a 9 x 13 pan. Spread the mixture evenly in the pan. Bake the bars for 30 minutes.


Let it cool then flip them onto a cutting board, peel the tinfoil off, and cut the bars. When I say let them cool, I mean that in a do as I say not as I do kinda way (I have a patience problem that I’m not getting help for but acknowledging the problem is the first step...right). They get a little crumbly if you don’t let them cool first, though to be honest they might do that any way I haven’t tried the patient method yet.

These are amazing. They are kind of a mix between a granola bar and a cookie. But granola bars are healthy so that's what I'm going to call them. I think I like this eating healthy thing.

Update: I made these again with a few changes. I dropped the PB chips and the chocolate chips and added 1 cup mini m&ms. I also got rid of the cinnamon. I like the new version even better then the first and I was pretty fond of the first version.

Olive Oil Crackers

I decided to try my hand at crackers. Everyone told me to go buy them, they cost like 2 dollars and that’s not even on sale. But I’ve never made crackers and I felt the need so made them anyway. I found the recipe for these on 101 cookbooks. I changed it a little to fit what I have in my cupboard but it’s basically the same recipe.

I used

1 ½ cups all-purpose flour

1 ½ cups whole wheat flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup warm water

⅓ cup extra virgin olive oil

random spices

Mix together the flour and salt. Then add in the water and olive oil. Mix the dough for 5 min on medium speed. She said you could mix it and then knead by hand, but what’s the point of living with your sister if you can’t steal the Kitchen Aid from time to time.

Break the dough into 12 semi equal pieces (no apparently I can’t count I made 10) and rub them with a little olive oil. Make them into little balls and put them on a plate. Cover the dough and let it rest for 30-60 minutes. I left mine for 60, I needed to go look up topping ideas on the internet and eat one of the left over cookies from the last post.

Preheat the oven to 450º. Flatten the dough and put it on the lightly dusted cookie sheet. You can dust the cookie sheet with flour or cornmeal. Cut the dough into the shape you want the crackers to be, add toppings and poke each cracker with a fork. Bake the crackers until they are light brown.

I tried a bunch of different flavors with mixed results.

1) Coarse salt: I know this seems like a safe bet but these were the worst of the bunch, completely inedible.

2) Parmesan and garlic: These were ok but kind of boring, though they would make really good croutons.

3, 5) Parmesan and Italian seasoning: These were pretty good, my third favorite. These are in the picture of the baked crackers on the cookies sheet,

4, 6, 8) Cinnamon and sugar: Amazing I made three of these, and still ended up with very few of them at the end. These are the ones in the picture at the top.

7) Cumin and cayenne pepper: Really, really hot but not a lot of flavor, though that could have been caused by my taste buds dying.

9, 10) Pumpkin pie spice and sugar: These were my second favorite they reminded me of the apple farm. Go easy on the pumpkin pie spice.

I would definitely make these again (or at least the sugar versions). I may try making one of the sugar versions for Jolene’s pumpkin dip next fall. I did rediscover that I’m not that fond of crackers. I like my carbs to be a little more substantial. I wanted to make them thicker and Liz kept reminding me that crackers are supposed to be crisp. Maybe I should try bread next time.