This week has been a fairly eventful week as I settle into life after undergraduate and return to cooking. While I wait to hear back from my grad school apps, there is little else I can do besides cook, read, exercise and look for work. Since I returned from my short voyage to Madison I have made a number of creative and scrumptious meals.
So far I have put together:
Roasted Parsnip Soup
Potatoes Roasted in Butter with Leeks, Carrots and Tomatoes
Pollo Asado with Rice
Homemade Pumpkin Ravioli drizzled with a herb infused truffle oil
Sautéed Cauliflower with Colored Carrots
While I could detail each recipe within this post, I’m going to stick to the Homemade Ravioli, as it was by far the best concoction of the week. Although I don’t have a pasta maker, I made do with a flat counter, a rolling pin and a cup (to cut the ravioli)
Ingredients:
Pasta Dough
5 Eggs
3 Cups All-Purpose Flour
Salt
Olive Oil
Filling
Fresh Small Pumpkin or 2 Cans of Pumpkin Puree
Nutmeg
Fresh Thyme
Cinnamon
Salt
Sauce/Drizzle
Olive Oil
Fresh Rosemary
Fresh Sage
3 Finely Chopped Garlic Cloves
Truffle Oil
Garnish
Freshly Roasted Pumpkin Seeds
Steps
- Turn your oven on to 350 deg. F, cut your small pumpkin in half and place it on a baking sheet in the oven for about 2 hours or until you can scoop out the insides with a spoon.
- In a small bowl, beat the eggs, salt & olive oil. In a large bowl, place the flour and pour in the egg mixture. Stir with a fork and fold together until all of the egg mixture is absorbed and the dough forms into a sticky ball.
- Flour your hands and divide the dough into 3 separate ones. Knead each dough a bit to form it into a ball. You will get better results if you cover each completely in cellophane and refrigerate for a few hours (however, I did not do this).
- Cover your rolling surface in flour, as well as your rolling pin, and roll out the ball of dough as flat and thin as you can get it. I cut mine into circles with a cup. Also, make sure you have a top and bottom for each pasta.
- Puree the ingredients for your filling or mash up with a fork.
- Once you have combined the pumpkin, nutmeg, cinnamon, thyme and salt, use a small spoon to place to filling onto your raviolis.
- After you have placed to tops of the pastas over the filled bottoms, use a fork to crimp the edges of each pumpkin filled shell.
- Depending on the thickness of your dough, they should take anywhere from 4-10 minutes to cook in boiling water but keep a close eye on them.
- While the pasta cooks, heat a small amount of olive oil in a pan at medium heat and add your chopped garlic, rosemary and sage to the pan. Make sure not to burn the garlic or herbs, but cook it just enough to infuse the flavors into your oil. Then if you have access to truffle oil, add a small amount of truffle oil to your finished product once it has been removed from the fire (but not too much because it will overwhelm the other flavors).
- Once the ravioli is done, add your herb oil and Parmesan cheese if it pleases you. Enjoy!
Music Listened to:
Beirut, Beirut, Beirut
Currently I’m in the process of rebuilding all my playlists so unfortunately I’ve lost my lists of cooking jams.
With the fridge stocked up with beautiful winter veggies like beets, cabbage, and carrots, my next post is guaranteed to be colorful!
Until next time,
Ray
