My Mom's Basic Tortellini
By: Shelby Hintze
Published: Thursday, January 27, 2011 - 9:34pm

Ingredients




Pasta:
 cups flour
2 eggs, 4 yolks
1/2 teaspoon salt

Preparation

1 Dump the flour out on the counter and make a well in the middle of it, just like you would for your gravy in your mashed potatoes. 2 Put the eggs and the salt into the well. 3 With a fork, break the yolks and start folding the flour into the well.  You can abandon your fork and just start using your hands.  It's messy and sticky and oh so fun. 4 Now you're going to knead the heck out of the dough.  It's really crumbly so you may want to sprinkle a little bit of water on the dough.  The dough will get firm with a slightly elastic feel. 5 Now wrap it up in saran wrap and let it set for about an hour.  This is the perfect time to make your filling or run out for a quick lunch (which is what I would suggest.) 6 For the filling, we used a mixture of ricotta cheese and parmesan cheese. In part of it, we used fresh, chopped spinach. In the other half, we used tomato basil feta. We didn't measure just tasted! You can't go wrong with cheese, basil and spinach! 7 Now for the fun part! 8 Roll out your pasta dough. It can be done by hand but a pasta maker will be your best friend! 9 Cut your pasta dough into 1 and a half in squares using a pizza cutter. 10 Put a dollop of filling on top of each square 11 Fold pasta square diagonally over filling and gently press the edges together. 12 Wrap the pocket around your finger and pinch the two corners together. 13 Slide off your finger and fold the top of the triangle back. 14 Boil in water and a bit of salt. When they float, you know they're done! 15 Serve however you want! We did an alfredo sauce with grilled chicken. Yum!