Home Made Ravioli - Worth a Try

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.

Taco Chili, My New Recipe

The other day I decided chili season was upon us so it was time that I started the season with a new chili recipe.

My original recipe:

1 large can diced tomato
10 oz ground turkey
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 cup frozen corn
4 fresh tomatoes
2 Serrano peppers
2 banana peppers
3 cloves garlic
1/2 packet any kind of taco seasoning (I used chipotle)

Optional: Serve with tortilla chips

I started by cooking the ground turkey with the taco seasoning and the peppers (chopped with my food chopper) and the garlic (pressed with my garlic press). I peeled the tomatoes (not as bad as it sounds with large tomatoes that you run under hot water for a little minute) and cut them into smaller pieces with my super awesome tomato knife, I don't know why I ever tried cutting tomatoes with a non-serrated knife before, but just don't do it. Always use a serrated knife when you want to cut tomatoes! It's just so much easier.

I put the tomatoes into my new Manual Food Processor and wow do I love that thing! It's lightweight and has no cords (that's the manual part) so it's no hassle to get out and use and then clean up and put away. To use it I just push down on the handle pump thingy and it spins the blade, so to finely chop and nearly liquify the tomatoes just takes a few pumps.

Add the tomatoes and the beans and corn, and simmer for about ten minutes. Voila! Chili!

Turkey Meatballs, Fruity Style

So I have this new cookbook which has I think five or six recipes for tapenade, which is like a topping/sauce of chopped veggies or fruit and olive oil, similar to pesto but more chunky and less oily.

I found this recipe called "Tapenade Turkey Meatballs" and it sounded amazingly delicious! And I had all the ingredients! Or so I thought... The recipe called for 1 cup tapenade. I then consulted the tapenade recipes to find that I had only about half the ingredients for any given recipe of tapenade. As you can imagine this disrupted my culinary plans for the evening. Never one to let a little kitchen adversity bring me down I figured I would just wing it and put in something else.

The original recipe called for 1 slice of bread, processed into crumbs. I didn't feel like dirtying my BRAND NEW Manual Food Processor (I FINALLY got that thing! I've been waiting since March! Oh how I love Pampered Chef <3). So I used 1/3 cup Italian style breadcrumbs. At this point I already had 3/4 lb of ground turkey in my mixing bowl with one egg, so it was time to find the flavor that would have been provided by the elusive tapenade. To my fridge I did go to look for that special secret ingredient.

What I found was a variety of dressings, condiments and other unsuitable things that had no place in meatballs. I was perusing our large variety of hot sauces when I saw Spicy Pineapple Rum Sauce (from the Pampered Pantry). It looked to have a similar consistency as the tapenades in the picture so I decided that 1/3 cup of Spicy Pineapple Rum Sauce would be just the thing for these wayward meatballs.

Everything became mixed and then I used my Small Scoop (good for cookies too :D I made those earlier in the day) to make 30 little meatballs and put them into my new Small Ridged Baker (which is the newest piece of stoneware offered by my favorite company, so I have to test it out, right?) The recipe called for me to microwave them for 6-7 minutes and I thought that was a bad idea. I do not like cooking in a microwave, though I am learning how, especially after the never-ending heatwave this summer.

So I instead baked them for 15 minutes in a 350 degree oven. They came out moist, not crumbly and best of all not greasy/fatty because all the drippings collected in the ridges of my stoneware. (Which was surprisingly easy to clean, a huge relief after seeing all those ridges for the first time!) And not to forget the most important part of any dish - the flavor! They tasted phenomenal, I had amazed my own taste-buds this time. And my husband has (another) new favorite meal! :D

I paired them with a side dish of sauteed zucchini and squash from our garden, with some chopped vidalia onion, sea salt, coarsely ground black pepper and butter for flavor.