Many cultures use a pastry of some kind filled with a meat/cheese/vegetable of some kind. The pierogi, the dumpling, the ravioli. . .they are all variations on a similar theme.

This recipe differs somewhat, if only in its scope. The recipe originated with an Italian mother (of 10 children). Eventaully these 10 children had children of their own. Everyone would gather for the holiday's, and they all needed to be fed. There were many possibilities for the menu. How ravioli was decided upon is unknown, because there are certainly easier choices. However, once the tradition began, every year the pasta was made. Gradually the duties fell to the children, and now, the grandchildren. To gather together as a family and make a really big dinner.

For the pasta

• 10 pounds of all-purpose flour
• One dozen eggs
• Handful of salt. Who's hand? How big of a hand? Well, yours would be fine.
• One glass of water. . . No, not a cup, a glass. What size? Ask my great grandma. What? You don't know where she is? She's in Mt. Olive cemetary, she's quite dead. Lovely lady, still, not very chatty. Anyway, we did ask her¹. Her answer, "what!?!? No, just a glass!" So there.

For the filling

• 5 pounds ground beef, or equivilant amount of mushrooms of any sort
• Three large white onions, minced
• One head of garlic, minced
• 1/2 pound grated parmeasan cheese
• One big handful of parsley, minced
• Handful of salt
• Handful of pepper

Please NOTE: use less salt and pepper with mushrooms than with the beef. Also, you'll need loads of butter to saute the mushrooms, but only a little olive oil for the beef, the fat will fry itself and prevent too much sticking.

The best and easiest way to perform a recipe of this magnitude is with 4-6 people; one of whom is mostly doing the filling. I will pretend that everyone is on their own here however.

The filling:

1. Assuming that you have a skillet that will hold the entire contents of the filling (I use a roasting pan over two burners on the oven): over a low heat warm a few tablespoons of olive oil.
2. Toss in the garlic and onion, saute them and stir somewhat so that they do not brown, but grow transparent.
3. Once the onion and garlic clear, add the meat gradually to the pan. At this stage is the greatest risk for burning, so be sure to keep all of the meat moving in the pan until the fat heats up a bit. When all of the meat is broken up, and moving freely you can add the salt and pepper.
4. Once the meat is uniformly grey, add the parsley and cheese and lower the heat to simmer, or warm, for 1/2 hour.
5. If you are making the filling days ahead of time, remove it from the stove and freeze it in an airtight container.

The pasta:

1. Get a long, flat table, a long straight rolling pin (NOT a french pin, you'll kill yourself), a pasta press, 10 bowls, plastic wrap, 10 cloth napkins (or link-free hand towels, that you don't mind getting some food in), a few clothes hangers or chairs with horizontal slats
2. In the middle of the big table mound 9 1/2 pounds of flour (reserve 1/2 pound for later in a bowl).
3. In the center of the mound, creat a deep volcano-like crater. Be careful that the "walls" of the crater are thick enough, and the crater is deep enough for a dozen eggs, plus around 6 cm.
4. Add one egg at a time to crater in the flour volcano. Be sure that no egg escapes the crater. If and egg begins to escape, be sure that it is hemmed in by the flour at the base, and does not run all over the table!
5. Add the salt around the crater's rim.
6. When all the eggs are added, fold the volcano in upon itself with your hands slowly and carefully as to avoid egg running away.
7. Continue to fold the flour over the egg, until all of the fluid egg is absorbed.
8. At this point your hands will be very sticky with pasta. Avoid the temptation to wash, and continue to incorporate as much of the dry flour as possible into the folding.
9. Much of the flour will still be dry at this point, so begin to sprinkle water from the glass onto your hands as you fold dry flour into the mix.
10. Keep folding in the flour and some water until almost all the flour is sticky and the mix is fairly homogenous.
11. Divide pasta into 10 equal sized balls, seperate without overly handling them.
12. Wrap each ball in a damp napkin or towel.
13. Put them balls each into a bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Allow to sit for 30 minutes.
14. After 30 minutes, get your first ball, and roll it out (you'll need to lightly flour the table and rolling pin here, along with your hands) until it is 10 cm wide.
15. With the pasta press, roll out the pasta gradually. The instructions of the pasta press are usually good about this, but in case you've thrown your instructions away, I'll remind you
• Lightly flour the roller
• Set the press to the widest setting
• Ease the rolled out pasta into the press
• Slowly and evenly roll the pasta through the press, if it needs two passes to be quite even, then pass the pasta through again.
• Continue narrowing the press until the pasat is just under 1 mm thick, on many presses this is setting number 5 (of 10), but check your press for best advice.

NOTE: the lengthen of the pasta may be shortened to ease with maneuvering. Also, continue to flour the pasta and the press if there is a lot of moisture.

So now long and relatively narrow strips of pasta have been achieved. The pasta should be between 20 and 12 cm wide. Cut the pasta into 12x12 or 20x20 cm squares, this does not need to be closely measured out, rough cutting will be fine. Since the row of pasta is long, if there is an assistant helping, as you cut the pasta they can drop a spoonful of filling into the middle of each square. If there are two additional helpers one can carefully fold the past in half, pressing out all of the air and the final helper can close the ravioli with the prongs of a fork to assure good closure.

Cooking the ravioli

The water need to be at a rolling boil. Use 3 times the volume of water to pasta. Drop the ravioli in one at a time and stir the pot with a wooden spoon to avoid clumping. Be gentle with the ravioli until they come out of the pot. When the ravioli float to the top remove them, one at a time and test them to be sure they are thoroughly cooked. Place the ravioli in a pasta dish and cover with sauce and Parmesean cheese.

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Italian cooking