Update Dark Days Challenge #7 – Butternut squash ravioli

Move over chef boy-ar-dee.

Butternut squash ravioli:

Pasta dough (I used the rest of the dough from last week-about 1/2 the recipe)
1 Butternut squash peeled and cut into chunks
1 small red potato diced

I roasted the squash and potato in some olive oil with some salt and black pepper. Let it cool and then mashed it with a fork. I was going to blend it smooth, but I liked the crunch of the roasted potatoes. The potatoes were cut smaller than the squash, so were crunchier. I totally forgot the maple syrup in the squash filling (it’s sweet anyway, so who cares.)

I rolled out the pasta into thin strips about 3 inches across. Then cut off a square and filled with about 2 tsp filling. I didn’t get precice measurements and I can’t say I was totally consistent. I’m just happy they got sealed and none of the filling burst through the dough.
Let’s just call them rustic.
Then I dropped them 6 at a time into boiling salted water.

I sauteed a little garlic in olive oil and added a little basil. I tossed the cooked ravioli in the oil and plated. When I reheat the rest of these later, I’ll probably just fry them in the garlic basil oil. Fried ravioli is one of the greatest leftovers.

There’s a scene in Cranford where Dame Judy Dench talks about how her father made the childeren do an exercise when writing their journals. At the beginng of each day they would write what they planned to do and at the end of the day write what actually happened. Things rarely turn out as you expect.

Original Post:

Dark days are getting slim pickins’.

I still have some pasta dough that’s been chillin’ in the fridge. I managed to save most of a butternut squash that was trying to plant itself on the kitchen shelf. The seeds were starting to turn all black, so I didn’t get any squash seeds to roast.

My local find of the week was some maple syrup. I’m going to put that in the ravioli filling, too.

The squash is roasting now, but I’ll post photos and results when this actually gets completed. One of these weeks I won’t wait until the last minute to post…yeah, that’s a new year’s resolution that is not likely to happen.

Southern pecan pancakes

Bianca at Vegan Crunk is testing out some recipes for her cookbook and this week is Cinnamon Pecan Waffles. Being a tester is the perfect project for me. I get to buy stuff, cook stuff, and eat stuff like it’s my job. My mom, the cookbook aficionado, is impressed I’m a tester. Mom also called this morning to check what I did in our last batch of fridge bread dough. I should have just pointed to my blog post, but I told her anyway.

OK, so the test recipe has morphed into pecan pancakes because I don’t have a waffle iron and the ninja says he’s allergic to cinnamon. It’s even more the smell than the taste, so I avoid cinnamon candles and baking with it (rest stops with Cinnabon are particularly annoying-thanks New Jersey*.) But if the ninja puts up with all my vegan quirks and subjects himself to endless experiments in cruelty free cooking, I suppose I can’t complain about his one normal ingredient issue. I was actually going to buy a waffle iron, but mom says she thinks she has an “extra” one somewhere in the house, so maybe I’ll get one…eventually. I know I had one, but I think it went in the great purge from Boston.
The griddle is the cuisinart pannini grill. It would be better if one of the sets of plates was for waffles, but it’s OK for pancakes. I must have the hit settings right (400 degrees), because the pancakes cooked perfectly. The thing is generally a little temperamental, so I won’t actually recommend it as a necessary gadget. Now that I’ve dug it out, guess it should get some play as a pannini press, but I’ll have to get to that later.

The pancakes were fantastic. I powered down 4. The recipe makes 8 waffles, but I made 20 pancakes with 1/4 cup batter each. Use a tablespoon measure for perfect silver dollar sized pancakes. I know what I’m having for breakfast all week.

In case you were wondering, maple syrup does “go bad” if you leave it opened in the cupboard too long (could have been there up to 4 years.) Mine had a layer of slimy mold on it which is apparently harmless and can be skimmed off. I did pick up some new syrup and it’s local! Produced in Conesville, New York 135 miles away.

*Side note to the NJ rest stop…on the way back from DE after Christmas, I was getting my BK veggie burger (no mayo) and turned to stare into the eyes of a familiar face. I looked away and as we walked away, subtly turned to the ninja and said “hey, I think that’s Elliot Spitzer.” The ninja then turned around, waved, grinned, and said something like “hey, howya doin'” and Mr. Spitzer nodded in recognition. He was with his family and was driving a minivan.

While I’m at it, I also saw Russel Simmons in Union Square on Halloween. I have no appreciation for hip hop, but I know a good vegan when I see one.

New Year’s Eve – from the couch

I’m staying in for New Year’s Eve this year and I couldn’t be happier about it. I picked up some more Dr. Cow cashew cheese to bring to a New Year’s Day party tomorrow and we’ll see how the omni foodies like it.

Side effect of going to a cool health food store in the village (Life Thyme, again, 6th ave btw 8th & 9th sts) is the prepared dishes in the deli. Most of what I saw is vegan and much of it is raw, too. This is a roasted vegetable pie with butternut squash, zucchni, kale, collard greens, eggplant and, quinoa. It was pretty darn good. I really should eat more vegetables.


Happy New Year from the couch, ya’ll!

Cash Shoes and Cashews – Payless and Dr. Cow Cheese

I got three pairs of vegan work/walk to work shoes for a total of $42.98 at payless. That sum usually buys barely one shoe. I don’t know about all payless shoes, but everything I looked at was all man made materials. All three are surprisingly comfortable and now I can release some leather work shoes to a thrift shop.

I also finally picked up some Dr. Cow’s nut cheese. If you miss stinky french cheeses, don’t hesitate and get some now. If you don’t live in New York you can order it online. I got mine at Life Thyme near Union Square.

I’m serving this with some nice yellow tail shiraz I got for a Christmas gift. It’s just me, but it’s so fancy I had to be “serving it” somehow. This is hands down my favorite veganized something I’ve had yet. You’d never know it is cashew cheese. The cream cheese is mild and has some bite and the aged is pungent and earthy.Next time someone has a wine and cheese party, I’m totally bringing this.

Dark Days week #6 – Pasta! No really, I made the pasta.

Spaghetti with simple sage butter (earth balance) sauce. Earth Balance vegan butter appears to be made in NJ. For today’s purpose, that’s local enough. At least I’m paying attention to where my food comes from. Honestly, I would normally use the fancy Italian olive oil. Sometimes you gotta support the global economy, too. The flours are from King Arthur, and the dried sage was fresh when I got it at the last farmer’s market.

Anyway, making your own pasta really isn’t nearly as complicated as Barilla wants you to think. In fact, with the assistance of my bread machine and the pasta maker, it barely took more hands on prep time than opening a box of dried pasta. And playing with dough is always kinda fun.

Basic pasta dough:

1 cup semolina flour
1 cup unbleached white flour
1/2 cup water (+ about 2 TBS if needed)
1/2 tsp salt

Put ingredients in bread machine on dough cycle and make sure all the flour absorbs into the ball of dough, and add more water if needed.

I removed it once mixed and put it in the fridge for about a 1/2 hour (some recipes say an hour, but, I was hungry.) I pulled out the pasta maker from the depths of the cabinet and dusted it off. Next, I put on a pot of water to boil. Now for the fun part. I rolled out a piece of dough – 1/4 of the dough for one serving. Rolled as a flat sheet, then ran through the spaghetti rollers and voila, pasta.
If you’re making an entire batch, you can put the noodles on a broomstick to dry. I didn’t because I don’t have a good place to balance the broomstick and I get upset when inevitably I drop some precious noodles on the floor. So since I’m cooking them immediately, I just dust them with some flour, pulled apart any guys that were sticking together and laid them on the dough mat until the water was boiling.

Fresh thin noodles cook in roughly 1 minute, so as soon as I dropped in the noodles, I made the sauce. Melted 1 TBS vegan butter, 1 garlic clove, 1 tsp dried sage (from farmer’s market) and a little seasoned salt. When pasta is al dente, drain and give a brief saute in the butter sage sauce. Take quick photo, ignore bad lighting and photography skills, then eat.
Aren’t you glad it wasn’t another pesto or squash recipe?

Evening with a vengence! Biscuits and Gravy.

Why oh why don’t I make new recipes more often. I read them, think, hey, that looks good, then like a year later-by the power of greyskull-I finally whip it up.

A. Somehow a conversation with the ninja today turned to biscuits.

Me: I’m having a cup of tea.
Him: With biscuits?
Me: Uh, no, but like, do you mean biscuits like British for cookies or like biscuits and gravy? Because I guess either would go well with tea. Since it’s afternoon, I guess cookies would be better, but I suppose you could be having tea with breakfast so it could go with biscuits and gravy.
Him: Uh, whatever. I like cookies and biscuits.

B. I’ve got some tempeh in the fridge that is embarrassingly past it’s sell by date.

C. I’m bored and want to cook something since I just read the entire new Veg News.

D. I’m hungry. Now.

E. Grab Vegan with a Vengeance from the shelf. Check index for tempeh recipes. Debate several recipes.

F. Make: Tempeh Sausage crumbles and Baking Powder Biscuits and White Bean Tempeh Sausage Gravy.

G. Marvel at both how easy and fast this is to make from conception to table and again wonder why I haven’t made everything from this cookbook yet. The ninja will be happy when he gets home to have biscuits. Too bad the mustard sauce is gone, or I would have had to go all Slingblade and have biscuits with mustard sauce. Mmm,hmm….maybe next time.

More ninjadillas and pizza and an alien cat

It’s not a real vegan food blog until ya post some cat photos.

Miss Lizzie and Mr. Darcy chill out while I’m cooking up vegan goodness at Mom’s. Those are all cookbooks on the shelves behind the sofa. Mom may be missing a few vegetarian cookbooks from the stash…hope she doesn’t read this soon…

For Christmas leftovers, I made ninjadillas. The filling is the seitan from last night sliced up in some store bought pasilla sauce. Pasilla sauce is ancho and pasilla peppers with OJ and garlic. I threw some black beans and cooked brown rice in the filling and let it simmer a few minutes. Grilled it up on some spinach tortillas with soy cheddar and served it with chipotle vegenaise, green salsa, and some sliced grape tomatoes.
I also made more of the artisan bread dough. This time I used King Arthur white wheat flour. We made pizzas out of it and there’s still dough for mom to make more fresh bread herself.
The pizza is topped simply with some jarred tomato sauce and Follow your Heart cheddar which melted beautifully.

Just in case she tries to fool you with her cuteness…Lizzie has been captured in her true alien form…