Sweet Potato Ravioli

Sweet Potato Ravioli. Quick and easy comfort food. So satisfying.

I love it when you don't have a plan and it comes together anyway. It was one of those days when I had no idea what I was going to make for dinner. I was looking around the kitchen and found a lonely sweet potato on its last leg. I knew I needed to use it up or it was going in the trash and I hate throwing away food. So there I was opening cabinets, looking in the frig, trying to figure out what I had that I could turn into a meal. I found some won ton wrappers in the freezer.....and ta da.... the sweet potato ravioli was born.

It doesn't take much filing for ravioli especially for two servings. Good thing because that potato was rather puny. I put it in the microwave and cooked it, scooped out all the filing into a bowl, then added a little heavy cream, nutmeg, Parmesan cheese, and crushed amaretti cookies. (I just happened to have the cookies left from the last time I make real butternut squash ravioli. By real I mean making the pasta.) Chill the filing for a little while in the frig so it firms up.

I put the won ton skins on the counter, brushed one side with an egg wash, put on a teaspoon or so of the filing, then put the top won ton on and used my fingers to seal it and work out any bubbles. It is important to get the ravioli to seal well otherwise when you cook it it might come apart and the filing will just cook out.

I made 6 ravioli per serving. Each ravioli requires 2 skins and therefore used a total of 24 won ton skins.

Put a little flour on a baking sheet and place the sealed ravioli on the sheet. The flour will prevent them from sticking. You can cover it with a dish towel to prevent them from drying out.

Using won ton skins to make ravioli means altering the cooking time. Pasta takes longer to cook. These are so thin and light that they cook very quickly. Literally 2 minutes in a pot of boiling salted water and they are done. Scoop them out with a big lable, hold briefly on a towel to remove any excess water then plate.

In the meantime make the sauce.

The sauce was brown butter, sage, toasted walnuts. I always have butter in the frig, I have a sage plant in one of the pots on my balcony, and walnuts are a staple for us because we eat them in oatmeal and on salads. They are high in omega 3's so I try to incorporate them into as many dishes as possible. I always toast my nuts in a saucepan on top of the stove, but keep the nuts moving around, and give them a few minutes. You can tell when the smell comes out and when they just start to brown that they are done. Don't walk away....they will burn. Some cooks toast on a sheet pan in the oven, or you could use a toaster oven. But I find the stove top method to be quick and easy for me. Set aside.

Melt the butter in a saucepan, gently only to brown, do not allow to burn. Add the sage leaves and turn off the heat. Allow the sage to sit in the butter while you finish the pasta and the flavor will impart.

To serve plate the ravioli, spoon the sage butter over, then sprinkle with the walnuts. You can grate a little cheese over them as well. Brace yourself....you are going to be soooooo happy!

Homemade Pizza

My daughter, who is a chef, taught me how to make pizza. Really good pizza. Pizza is a very personal preference. People have strong feelings about their pizza. It is one thing to try making something like pizza dough on your own but it is completely another thing when a chef teaches you and brings a great recipe that works every time. She knows how the dough should look, how it should feel, how to stretch it out, how much stuff to put on it, what the crust should look like when it's perfectly done. I listened very closely and made sure I picked up as much as possible so that I could make it again, without her, successfully. My daughter is a purist, when it comes to food, so we made margharita pizza and it is the only kind I've made since. You know the saying... if it ain't broke.






I am fortunate that I have granite counters which are wonderful for working pizza and pasta dough, and items for baking like pie crust. I mix my ingredients in a food processor, which some would say is just not right, but I don't think mixing it by hand makes it any better, and the food processor is so fast. Then I lay the dough out on the granite and kneed it. I sometimes use the Italian double zero (00) flour as it makes a wonderfully light and tender dough. You can purchase double 00 flour at Italian deli's and some specialty markets but if you can't find it locally you can get on line and have it shipped. I've ordered from King Arthur Flour and all the products are very good.


The key to a good pizza is a really hot oven. This is hard to do with the conventional home range. I preheat my oven for at least an hour prior to baking the pizza and I use a pizza stone. Get your oven as hot as you can get it.

This recipe is form Pizza, Calzone and Focaccia by Maxine Clark and the recipe makes a pizza that is soft and chewy with a crisp crust. It will make two 10 to 12 inches pizzas.

Dough:

1 package active dry yeast
1/2 teaspoons sugar
1 cup hand hot water, (hot water to the touch)
4 cups Italian "00" flour or unbleached all purpose flour, plus extra for dusting
1 teaspoon fine sea salt
1 tablespoon olive oil

Sauce recipe is below.

You will also need mozzarella cheese for the topping

In a medium bowl mix together the yeast, sugar and hot water. Allow to sit for 10 minutes to get frothy.

Sift the flour and salt into a large bowl. Put into the food processor, add the olive oil, pour in the yeast mixture. Pulse until it comes together. If it seems too stiff, add a little more water but be careful not to make it too wet. Put out on a lightly floured kneading surface and kneed briskly for 5 to 10 minutes until the dough is smooth, shiny and elastic. Try not to add to much flour as you kneed, you want the dough soft and somewhat wet. Shape the dough into a ball and put into a bowl that has been brushed with olive oil. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise until double in size about 90 minutes. Be sure you have a draft free warm area to allow the dough to rise.





Uncover the dough, punch down, and put out on a lightly floured surface. Divide into two balls. Place the balls well apart on the surface, cover loosely with plastic wrap, and allow to rise again another 60 to 90 minutes.

I use my hands and fingers to roll out the dough but you could try using a rolling pin. Use the same lightly floured surface to get it to the desired shape and thinness.

I use a pizza peel that I have sprinkled with corn meal on which to place the prepared dough. Then I add the sauce and the cheese and slide it onto the pizza stone.


For the sauce:
1/2 cup olive oil
2 garlic gloves, minced
1 teaspoon dried oregano
2 14 ounce cans chopped San Marzano tomatoes
Sea Salt
Pepper, freshly cracked

In a large shallow pan, heat the oil until very hot. Add the garlic, oregano, and tomatoes quickly and cook over high heat for 5 to 8 minutes. Be careful with this process. Stand back to avoid getting splattered. The high heat is important to get the sauce where it needs to be, thick and glossy. Season. Allow to cool slightly for the next step.

Pass though a food mill to remove any seeds or peel. If you don't have a food mill use a large mesh strainer and push it through with a rubber spatula. At this point the sauce should be thick but if you want it thicker or richer you can add it back to the pan and heat again. This process makes a uniquely rich sauce, with only a few ingredients.

Ladle the sauce over the pizza then add slices of fresh mozzarella cheese. It doesn't take much sauce because it is so rich. It surprised me when we made it because it has so few ingredients, and it cooks quickly, but it was delicious and intense.



Depending on how hot your oven is, and how thick your crust is, the pizza will take approximately 20 minutes. Use your peel to remove the pizza from the oven and place on a cutting surface. Add chopped basil while hot, slice, and enjoy.

While you're doing all this hopefully someone else has already selected the wine and opened the bottle!

Burrata Cheese

Have you tried Burrata Cheese yet? It's all the rage. I had heard about it and then learned that Mario Batali serves it in his restaurants, so you know it's gotta be good, and it's still somewhat of a novelty. It is not yet sold in many places although we have a couple of specialty stores locally that carry it.

A friend of mine went on a Burrata hunt and found a manufacturer, these folks are from Italy, that are supposed to make the best cheese and sell it to the specialty stores, where you can happily walk in and buy it for double what it cost at the manufacturer. But us girls will do just about anything for good cheese, so we took a field trip to this place. Just let me say it is not in the best part of town. It's the kind of area you want to get in....then get out! Fast! But we did get the cheese. We bought several container's of the burrata and then decided while we were there we may as well get some mozzarella too. I would have loved to have gotten some ricotta as well but I figured I was already pushing my luck. Needless to say we were eating cheese for days.

The Burrata comes in a big one pound ball. When you cut into it you notice there is a little skin on the outside that keeps it all together. The inside is very soft and creamy. It is similar to mozzarella but much creamier and richer, although it is light, as in airy. The first night I had it I served it as suggested, simply sliced with some good olive oil, salt and pepper. We also tried it with some fantastic fig balsamic I happened to have in the kitchen. It was good, but I found I could not eat that much because it is rich. I would have thought that since it was so light I could eat more of it but nooooooo.

The next night I decided to make a kind of a capresse pasta. See picture above. I whipped up some pasta dough in the morning and let it rest all day so that by the time I was ready for dinner I would not be too tired to make it. Good thinking on my part! I took some grape tomatoes and covered them with olive oil, dried herbs and garlic and roasted them in the oven. Then using the same pan, I added the pasta to it with the burrata, some kalamata olives, fresh basil and tossed it all together. The heat from the tomatoes and pasta melted some of the burrata so it was gooey. I topped it with some good olive oil and Parmesan. Ahhhh...yum!

You could turn this into a quick week night meal by using dried pasta. I do love a good home made pasta but I don't make it on a regular basis. It's more of a special item in our house.

A few days later I was still trying to figure out what to do with the rest of the mozzarella. I mean one can only eat so many capesse salads. I decided to make a lasagna. Plus I still had some pasta dough in the frig. I had no recipe I just got in the kitchen and put one together.

First I made the lasagna noodles with the pasta dough using my Kitchen Aid attachment. I made them slightly thinner than the store bought ones because I like a lighter lasagna. I think sometimes lasagna is just too darn thick and heavy. I remember while in Florence Italy my husband ordered lasagna that was to die for....like nothing we had ever had and have not had since. It was so unbelievably light I could not believe it was lasagna. All those layers, yet still airy, and it did not make you feel like you had a lead weight in your stomach afterward. Anyway I digress. I decided I would do three layers, each twice. A spinach layer, a tomato sauce layer, and the mozzarella cheese layer.

For the spinach I thawed a frozen bag of spinach and got all the water out of it. I caramelized some onions in olive oil, added the spinach, garlic and just a pinch of nutmeg and it was ready. Allow to come to room temp.

For the tomato layer I opened a can of whole San Marzano's and crushed them with my hand, sauteed them with some garlic, oregano, salt and pepper and just a pinch of red pepper flakes.

For the cheese I simply sliced it as thin as I could. I added nothing else to that.

Now I had all the ingredients ready and was ready to assemble. I took one layer of pasta, then half the spinach, more pasta, then half the tomato sauce, pasta, half the cheese. Repeat all three layers. I grated some Parmesan over the top and put it on a baking sheet into a 350 degree oven for 45 minutes. If you like that brown crusty thing on top you con turn the oven to broil for the last 5 minutes.

It was quite tasty and there were leftovers, which I love! I cut them into serving size pieces and put them in the freezer for those nights when I need something quick. I served small portions of the lasagna with a salad and glass of red wine. All I can say is that my husband is one lucky son of a.......I hope he realizes how lucky he is to be married to such a fine cook. Ha!

Potato pancakes with cavier

This is the continuing story of the caviar my friend Nancy received as a gift. If you refer to the recipe for red potatoes with caviar you will get caught up. Anyway....she had this jar of caviar she needed to use up and, being the good friend that I am, I of course, wanted to help her out. We looked around for an appropriate recipe and ended up making a shredded potato pancake topped with smoked salmon and caviar. Hum...now that I think about it, there seems to be a potato and caviar theme going on here. We finally used up the red caviar although I have no idea what type it was. All I know is that it was beautiful. Don't you agree?

The potatoes are shredded, dried well, and sauteed in clarified butter until crisp on both sides. The nice thing is that the potatoes have to soak in a bowl of water for awhile so you could get them shredded and in the water before your guests arrive and then they would be ready to make appetizers. I personally could eat these as a meal because I love potatoes and with the topping it can be hearty. We cut each pancake into 4 pieces but I suppose you could cut them into 6 for smaller portions.

As for the butter, the recipe calls to make your own, but if you want to skip this step you could buy clarified butter. It's not hard to do it just takes an additional step and the time. I rarely use clarified butter so I made my own.

The recipe: (adapted from Weir cooking in the city)

Ingredients:

• 2 1/4 pounds baking potatoes
• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter
• Salt and pepper
• 1/2 cup creme fraiche or sour cream
• 8 ounces thinly sliced smoked salmon
• 1 ounce caviar
• 1 tablespoon fresh chives, thinly sliced

Peel the potatoes and use a mandoline to cut into julienne strips. Place the potatoes in a large bowl and cover with water. Change the water several times until the water is clear. Let them soak about an hour.

Melt the butter in a saucepan, turn off and let sit for about 15 to 20minutes. Spoon the foam off the top and discard. You want the deep yellow clear butter that remains to cook the pancakes with. It will prevent burning.

Drain the potatoes and dry them. You could use a salad spinner for this but a clean kitchen towel works just as well. Toss the potatoes with salt and pepper.

In a 10 inch skillet melt 2 tablespoons of the butter and get hot. Add one third of the potatoes and press to form a flat pancake. Cook about 8 minutes until golden brown and slightly crisp, then flip. Do this by inverting onto a plate and then sliding back in to the skillet. Be very careful, this step could result in a broken pancake. Continue to cook the second side for another 8 minutes. When done, transfer to a serving dish, or hold in the oven on a sheet pan if making more. (We eat them as they come right out of the skillet.) Repeat the process with the rest of the potatoes making 2 more pancakes.

Cut each pancake into 4 wedges and top each wedge with creme fraiche, a slice of the salmon, a small teaspoon of caviar, and the chives.

Enjoy with a sparkling wine, our fav, or a glass of your favorite white wine.