Shrimp and Goat Cheese Ravioli

I have been spending quite a bit of time in the kitchen lately. I think since I have so many weekends away coming up, I am just enjoying hanging around the house and cooking up a storm. Earlier this week, I had the bright idea to make homemade ravioli, perhaps a lofty goal for a weeknight after a day of work, a run, and some blogging, but it turned out okay.

I looked at a bunch of random online recipes and got the gist of the ingredients involved. Since we only had wheat flour in the house (I will remedy that soon!) I was stuck making wheat pasta.

I used three cups of flour, two large eggs and enough water to turn it into dough. It was a messy mess.

I used my fanciest of rolling pins, an empty wine bottle, to roll out the dough. I do have a pasta maker, but I didn’t set it up for this venture. Probably a bad idea. . .

I let the dough sit for awhile while I mixed up a quick, simple filling of goat cheese, shrimp, and garlic powder.

I added scoops of filling along the dough, placed the other layer of dough on top, and used a glass to cut the ravioli out. Finally, I used a fork to seal the ravioli, making sure the filling didn’t fall out.

Totally rustic, right? My dough was a little too thick, and I will  most definitely use the pasta maker next time and probably more water. It kept ripping when I tried to get it thinner 🙁

I planned on making a homemade heirloom tomato sauce for the ravioli, but by the time I was done rolling out the pasta dough and all, I decided to use another of the samples that Lucini sent me, Spicy Tuscan Tomato Sauce. It ended up being the perfect choice. Once the ravioli were cut open, the goat cheese and spicy sauce sort of combined to make a nice, creamy sauce.

As we get closer to the holiday weekend, I will be taking a break from my kitchen adventures. I am exhausted!

I am going to a wedding in the Berkshires for our friends’ wedding this weekend, and I can not wait to break out of the office Friday at 2. It has been quite the week!

What are you up to for this unofficial last weekend of summer?