Pesto Pasta Dough and Chicken Stuffed Ravioli

Ingredients:
Dough:
-1 C AP flour
-1 jumbo egg
-dash of salt
-3 TB pesto (any brand or your own variety)
-1+ TB olive oil (I add mine in half TB increments til my dough comes together in a ball)

Filling:
-1 small chicken breast, cooked and finely shredded
-handful of cherry tomatoes, diced
-1 heaping handful of spinach leaves, finely shredded
-salt and pepper

Plop your flour in your mixer and add the egg and salt.  Add your pesto and let it mix a minute or so with the dough hook attachment.  Start adding in EVOO in half TB increments until the dough forms a ball.  Get some plastic wrap, oil the surface of the dough ball, and wrap it up in plastic wrap to sit for thirty minutes.

While this was going on, I heated a skillet up and plopped in my chicken, tomatoes, and spinach with a little pat of butter and some salt and pepper, and I let them cook for about 5 minutes until the spinach wilted down.  My chicken was leftover from another dish, so I did not have to worry about cooking it. 

Transfer the filling to a bowl and let it cool down. 

When the dough is ready, roll it out as thin as you can on a floured surface (think 1/8th inch or so).  If you can't get it out real thin the first go, you can thin out the ravioli pieces after you cut them.  I do this all the time.

I cut mine into squares, rolled them out thinner, and put a little dab of filling in them.  You could totally add ricotta to this or mozzarella, but all I did was grate just a tiny bit of parmesan into the filling before filling the ravioli.

Wet the edges of the dough with water, fold it over into a triangle, and seal the edges by pressing a fork into them.  You may want to knock the fork tines in some flour now and then to prevent them from sticking.

Once you get the ravioli done, you can cook them in batches of 8 or so in a large kettle in salted water for approximately 6-8 minutes, depending on how tender you like your noodles.  I prefer to go a little longer than some.

You can also put these out on a cookie sheet and pop them in the freezer for an hour or so, then transfer them to a bag and save them for later.

You can also coat these in an eggwash and breading and bake them in the oven.

Really, ravioli is every bit as delicious as it is tasty.

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