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Recipes that include ricotta

More Pumpkin Lasagna Please!

Thursday, October 29, 2009

When I first made pumpkin lasagna last year, I was afraid it wouldn’t work out so I made a small portion in an 8×8 dish. It turned out to be one of my favorite fall recipes, one that I am always bragging about to…well Lon and Ice (my dog). I’m just so proud of it. When pumpkins started showing up in the farmer’s market, I knew I was going to make this dish again. I figured I would re-do the old pictures, that did not do this Pumpkin Lasagna any justice. Then I realized the greater problem (yes, worse then how bad I was at photography back then). The portion was too small! You’ll never have enough with a 8×8 pan, even if you live by yourself. I swear. You won’t know how it just disappeared. I settled on making it in a conventional 9×13 dish, because that’s a pan size normal people own, but I really wish it was made in a giant roasting pan. Yea, the ones you can put a whole pig in. I love it that much.

Pumpkin Lasagna reheated 2nd day
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Bacon and Ricotta Stuffed Squash Blossoms

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Having already established that squash blossoms don’t have much of a taste and are only useful for their look, here’s my recipe for squash blossoms. It’s actually a take on a bacon ricotta mixture Lon threw together for lunch a couple of weekends ago. As usual, he didn’t write it down, so I made a mental note of having to re-create it. You can use the mixture as we did last time, just spread on crusty bread, delicious and easy, or stuff it into squash blossoms for an elegant appetizer.

Bacon and Ricotta Stuffed Squash Blossom 6

Bacon and Ricotta Stuffed Squash Blossoms
~makes 9 stuffed blossoms

  • 9 squash blossoms
  • 4 slices (about 5 ounces) uncured pepper bacon
  • 1 cup fresh whole milk ricotta
  • 1 teaspoon finely chopped fresh parsley
  • 1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil

Instructions –

1. Wash squash blossoms and allow them to dry. If they are male, you have to remove the stamen while keeping the flower in tact. (Even with my little fingers, this is difficult so it helps to use a paring knife to cut it out.) Set aside.

2. Chop up bacon into little squares and spread out on a cast iron pan on medium heat. Cook until browned and crispy. Remove to paper towel and allow to cool.

Niman Ranch Uncured Pepper Bacon Bacon Bits 2

3. In a small bowl, stir together ricotta, parsley, olive oil, and bacon (once it has cooled). This mixture can be made a day ahead and stored in the fridge.

Bacon Ricotta Mixture

4. Fill squash blossoms gently, careful not to rip the petals. You eat it like a lollipop.

Stuffed Squash Blossom bitten squash blossom

Serving Suggestions

You can serve it as an appetizer in individual cordial glasses:

Bacon and Ricotta Stuffed Squash Blossom 3

You can also lay it on a plate by itself, or as an accompaniment to another appetizer or dish. It would be great with a zucchini dish, like a plate of fried zucchini with this stuffed blossom. Darn! I should have done that.

Stuffed Squash Blossom 2

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Spinach Pie Rolls

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

When we were in Corfu, Greece we had fabulous Spinach Pie Rolls. I found something similar with a cheese filling in NY, but it wasn’t as good without the spinach. I do love cheese so combining the two, I now have my own version of the Spinach Pie Roll.

Spinach Pie Roll 5

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Beef and Spinach Lasagna

Monday, January 12, 2009

Lasagna is the ultimate comfort food and it’s probably one of the first things I learned to make. My mom (a fabulous Chinese cook) and I just followed the instructions on the side of a box of dry lasagna sheets, using jarred sauce. These days, I always make my own sauce, and after several variations, I have to dub this one my favorite, Beef and Spinach Lasagna. This is still a fairly classic tasting lasagna. It’s just that I like mixing spinach into the cheese mixture. Isn’t it wonderful when the healthier twist tastes better?

beef and spinach lasagna 6

*Update 9/23/09: My mom asked me to make her this lasagna so while I’m at it, I figured, I’d take new pictures, better pictures! (The first two and last picture are new.) Also, I wanted to note that Hungry Crasian pointed out that you don’t need to buy “no boil” lasagna sheets. I tested it out this time and she’s right, the regular kind does work fine. (Remember to cover the lasagna in aluminum foil before baking.)

fork full of lasagna 3

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Thanksgiving 2008 Series: Pumpkin Lasagna

Friday, November 14, 2008

As I mentioned, I’ll be working on recipes for you to use this Thanksgiving. This one is not one of your grandma’s recipes. It may seem a little out there and I won’t lie, I was nervous making it, thinking, what if this is crap? I don’t know where this idea even came from. Ideas just pop into my head from time to time, but just trust me. This is an incredible recipe. Lon was skeptical too, as he asked, what is that? Oh, and pumpkin, forget it. He was like, don’t give me a big piece. But in the end, he loved it.

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Wonton Skin Ravioli

Monday, November 3, 2008

I had left-over wonton skins from when I made wontons and I remembered seeing a recipe for Butternut Squash Ravioli once, where they were made with wonton skins. I decided to try this idea out, but with a spinach ricotta filling. I like a higher proportion of spinach than ricotta, and upon tasting, Lon agreed.

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Fresh Ravioli

Saturday, March 10, 2007

For lunch today, I scrounged through the fridge and found three leftovers: the sauce from some spicy dduk bok-kee from Korean Grandma; tomato chutney (sweet & tangy from ginger and vinegar) I made to top some tilapia last Sunday; and plain macaroni I boiled a few days ago for my inside-out meatball experiment (which didn’t go very well). I combined it all and added some garlic and mozzarella. It was a delicious lunch.

However, I broke the cardinal rule and had pasta again for dinner! This time I went all out with home-made ravioli. I picked up some spicy Italian sausage from Garden of Eden along with some washed spinach leaves. I didn’t write down the exact recipe, so here goes my best guess (particularly for the filling). In other words, this is a completely unrefined recipe.

Makes about 32 ravioli (~5 servings)

Ingredients: Pasta

  • 2 cups of A.P. Flour + extra for dusting
  • 3 extra large eggs
  • 1 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
  • warm water as needed

Ingredients: Filling

  • 2 links of spicy, Italian sausage (skins removed)
  • 2 cloves of garlic, diced
  • 1 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
  • 5oz spinach leaves (pre-cooked weight)
  • 1 cup ricotta
  • 2 tbsp. grated parmesan-romano
  • dried basil
  • black pepper

Ingredients: Sauce
This is enough for three portions.

  • 1 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
  • 1/2 cup white wine
  • 1/2 cup low-sodium, chicken stock
  • 2 cloves of garlic, diced
  • 1 Roma tomato, diced
  • 1 tbsp. corn starch

Instructions: Pasta

  1. In a broad mixing bowl, pour in 2 cups of flour and create a well, into which crack two eggs.
  2. With a fork, wisk the eggs, slowly widening your mixing bringing in the flour, until the mixture is getting dry (about one minute). Add 1 tbsp. olive oil, and warm water as necessary to just bring dough together.
  3. Continue turning and kneeding dough for three minutes, a little flour may be necessary to keep it from sticking. Over time it will not stick. Once basically smooth, flatten into a round and place on your counter, under the bowl you used to mix the flour and eggs. Leave it for at least 15 minutes– this is the perfect time to make the filling (see below).
  4. Once the dough has rested, cut it in half with a large pastry scraper (Jess likes the OXO pastry scraper), and wrap half in plastic wrap.
  5. Flatten the dough with your hand until it’s less than an inch deep. In most cases you do not need a special machine for this, but rolling ravioli dough by hand is insane. We use a pasta/noodle machine (the common Imperia model). Standard approach here: roll the dough through on the widest setting (#1 on ours); dust the dough with flour and brush (with a pastry brush) the extra off, then fold it over itself in half until, when turned 90 degrees, it will fit back through the machine’s width. Repeat this three times, turning 90 degrees each time. Remember to use a little flour between each fold, but not too much.
  6. Then begin reducing the machine’s settings, one step at a time, passing the dough through each time, until you get to the thinnest setting. By this time the dough is unwieldy! I tend to ribbon fold the dough on itself to help manage it while feeding it. Kind of like an S-shape.
  7. Finally lay out the dough, so that half of the length is flat (I keep the other half folded, but you could cut it off and reserve it). Quadrant off 2″ square sections and put a 1 tsp. dollop of the filling into each square.
  8. Prepare an egg wash (equal parts egg and warm water). Brush (I used the great silicone brush
    /> Carol got us) the edges of each square. Then cover the filling/bottom layer with the other half of the dough that was folded off to the side. Carefully push all the air out and try to seal the dough flat. Cut the ravioli squares with a pizza wheel. Scrape them off the counter with your pastry scraper, and place them on a baking sheet and cover with a towel. If they’re a bit wet, dust with some bench flour. We’ll talk about final cooking below.

Instructions: Filling

  1. In a large skillet, sautee the sausage over medium heat in a tbsp of extra virgin olive oil with the diced garlic. Break up the sausage as it cooks into the smallest pieces possible. When done, reserve in a bowl on the side.
  2. In the same skillet (no need to wash), cook the spinach with the basil and black pepper. No additional oil or water is necessary, just cook over medium heat and cover the pan, cook about four minutes.
  3. Chop the cooked spinach into a dice and put in the bowl with sausage.
  4. Once cooled a bit, add an equal amount of ricotta to the bowl, doubling the volume. Then add the parmesan

Instructions: Sauce & Final Prep

  1. In salted, rapidly boiling water, cook ravioli in portions (about 4-6 at at time), for one minute, then reserve in a colander.
  2. In the same skillet where the filling was prepared, still uncleaned, sautee over medium-high heat, the garlic in the olive oil. Then deglaze with white wine.
  3. Add the tomatoes and chicken stock and bring to heat; then stir in the corn starch as a slurry (add enough cold water to liquify starch). Finally stir in ravioli and bring back to temperature and serve.

Bon Appétit!

Check out Flickr for more pictures of the ravioli.

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