Tonight I decided I would make home made ravioli. It looked so easy in the cookbook, the pictures made it look like simplicity in cooking form. While it was not difficult to prepare, it was very messy, or I was very messy, in any case there was a mess. We can assign blame later.
So I began! I cooked my ground turkey and I mixed my ravioli filling - garlic, herbs and spices and ricotta (instead of mascarpone, it's what I had on hand, and I forgot to put in the Parmesan cheese... oops!) I laid out my wonton wrappers because they are multipurpose items, and scooped my filling onto each little square. I brushed the edges with water and topped them each with another wonton wrapper and pressed to seal. They were adorable pouches of delicious.
In the meantime I was making the sauce these little cuties would be cooking in. Red wine in place of white... what's life without improvisation? The wine is mixed with chicken broth and you put in cherry tomatoes and cook them until they pop. But I was impatient so I squashed them. I scooped out the little flattened tomatoes and ground them up in the Manual Food Processor so my sauce would be a little smoother. I accidentally reduced too much liquid so I added a can of diced tomato.
To cook the ravioli you put them in the sauce and "swirl to coat". I'm not even kidding, that was my instruction; so I'm "swirling" and nothing is really being coated so I just scooped some sauce on top of the little buggers.
After the cooking time was up I fished out two, one for me and one for Shane my dearest husband, and we dined upon these test ravioli. They needed more cooking time. Despite the recipe's clear lack of calling for a lid, I added a lid after more attempts at "swirling" and then just scooping.
Then we feasted upon ravioli as if we were royalty who particularly love to feast upon ravioli. They were delicious, but sort of hard to eat without making a mess. They were kind of too big, and I ended up chopping all mine up (yes, after all that work, I just chopped them up) and it turned into sort of goulash.
When I finally finished cleaning up the HUGE mess I had made while preparing this dinner I decided that next time I will just buy the filled pasta and make this amazing sauce to go with them. I'm glad I made this recipe, but I don't think I will go to the trouble again.
Monday, March 19, 2012
Thursday, March 8, 2012
Ricotta Gnocchi
Last Monday we decided to go meatless for dinner. So I looked through my cookbook, "29 Minutes to Dinner Volume 2", and found the meatless section. After flipping past recipes for soup and tofu which I just did not feel like making, I found a recipe for "Ricotta Gnocchi". At first glance I was sure this recipe was far too fancy and difficult to make.
But it sounded so good and the picture was so tantalizing, I read the ingredients and there wasn't anything too fancy... then I read the instructions and I was amazed at how easy it was going to be to make this beautiful, fancy dish in just 23 minutes. I'm not kidding, it really took less than 30 minutes to make dinner!
So we set out for the grocery store for the two ingredients we did not have on hand: ricotta cheese and Parmesan cheese (block). That's it. Everything else I had on hand: flour, butter, olive oil, red pepper flakes, garlic and 1 egg. I left a couple things out, because that's how I roll. And I hate lemon as you may know, so I feel I had good reason. I picked up spinach because spinach is delicious and it sounded good.
Then Monday dinner time arrived. I began by preparing the simple dough in my batter bowl. I grated the parmesan, measured the ricotta and mixed them with the egg and flour. I used my Small Scoop to make the cutest little dough balls. I heated butter and olive oil in my non-stick pan and scooped the dough directly into the pan. I cooked each for two minutes and flipped them with my chef's tongs (coated in silicone to keep the pan safe) and cooked them another two minutes. As they cooked they flattened just a bit and looked kind of like small scallops when they were finished.
I removed them from the pan, added garlic and red pepper, and then tossed in a couple handfuls of fresh spinach leaves, just to coat and wilt a bit. I made a wilted spinach salad with our cheese gnocchi. Truth to tell, I had this ulterior motive since I purchased the spinach when we went out for cheese.
It was ridiculously delicious! My husband tried to confiscate mine and has requested this dish again and soon. I was so impressed with how simple and elegant this dish was and how quickly it came together.
But it sounded so good and the picture was so tantalizing, I read the ingredients and there wasn't anything too fancy... then I read the instructions and I was amazed at how easy it was going to be to make this beautiful, fancy dish in just 23 minutes. I'm not kidding, it really took less than 30 minutes to make dinner!
So we set out for the grocery store for the two ingredients we did not have on hand: ricotta cheese and Parmesan cheese (block). That's it. Everything else I had on hand: flour, butter, olive oil, red pepper flakes, garlic and 1 egg. I left a couple things out, because that's how I roll. And I hate lemon as you may know, so I feel I had good reason. I picked up spinach because spinach is delicious and it sounded good.
Then Monday dinner time arrived. I began by preparing the simple dough in my batter bowl. I grated the parmesan, measured the ricotta and mixed them with the egg and flour. I used my Small Scoop to make the cutest little dough balls. I heated butter and olive oil in my non-stick pan and scooped the dough directly into the pan. I cooked each for two minutes and flipped them with my chef's tongs (coated in silicone to keep the pan safe) and cooked them another two minutes. As they cooked they flattened just a bit and looked kind of like small scallops when they were finished.
I removed them from the pan, added garlic and red pepper, and then tossed in a couple handfuls of fresh spinach leaves, just to coat and wilt a bit. I made a wilted spinach salad with our cheese gnocchi. Truth to tell, I had this ulterior motive since I purchased the spinach when we went out for cheese.
It was ridiculously delicious! My husband tried to confiscate mine and has requested this dish again and soon. I was so impressed with how simple and elegant this dish was and how quickly it came together.
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