Pumpkin Sage Ravioli with Creamy Onion Sauce

Another fun fall recipe and this is a K2 original.  Haven't made homemade pasta in a while and since I'm on a fall squash kick, wanted to combine the two.  Not the most attractive photo, I will admit, but the flavors in this dish more than make up for its lack of photogenicness. Don't know if that's really a word but I am deeming it one now.

Pumpkin Sage Ravioli with Creamy Onion Sauce

sage ravioli
2 cups semolina
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 pinch of salt
6 large eggs, lightly beaten
2 tbsp olive oil
4 tsp fresh sage, minced

pumpkin filling
4 oz pumpkin puree
4 oz ricotta cheese
1 tbsp toasted pinenut
1/16 tsp allspice
salt and pepper to taste

creamy onion sauce
2 small onions, finely sliced
1 tbsp butter
1 tbsp olive oil
1 cup half-n-half  plus some for thinning if needed
1 tbsp cornstarch

PASTA -- Mix together the semolina, flour, and salt in a large bowl.  Create a well in the middle and add the eggs and oil.

Blend with a fork until it starts to come together. 

Turn out mixture onto a semolina-dusted surface and knead 8-10 minutes until dough is smooth and elastically supple.

Fold in the minced sage, and continue to knead for another 2 minutes until the sage is well incorporated.

Cover dough and allow to rest at room temperature for 30 minutes.

SAUCE -- In a large sauce pan, heat butter and olive oil over medium high heat.  Add in onion slices.

Cook, stirring occasionally, for 45-50 minutes until onions are browned.

Add in 1 cup of half-n-half and stir well.

To thicken the sauce, whisk together 1 tbsp cornstarch and 1 tbsp half-n-half in a small bowl.  Bring sauce in pan to a low boil, and stir in cornstarch mix.  Stir while it thickens.  Remove from heat and set aside.  It will thicken even more as it stands.  If you want a thinner sauce, add more half-n-half to it.

FILLING -- In a small pan, toast the pine nuts over medium heat.  Heat until you can smell the aroma of the nuts.  Remove and allow to cool.  Rough chop the nuts.

In a medium bowl, mix pumpkin puree, ricotta, nuts, nutmeg, and season with salt and pepper to taste.

Roll out the pasta dough using a pasta machine or just a rolling pin. You want the pasta to be thin, about 1/8" thick.

Cut into squares, will need two squares per ravioli.  Fill one square with a tsp of the filling. 

Brush the edges of the bottom square with water and cover with the top square and press down on the edges. A fork works really well for this.

 

TO COOK -- Bring a large pot of water to boil.  Pour in a bit of olive oil and a pinch of salt.  Place the filled ravioli in the boiling water and cook for 8-9 minutes until done.

Drain and serve.  Cover with sauce and garnish with toasted pine nuts and sage.

NOTES

The sauce itself is a stand-alone hit and would go great with chicken or beef.  It would also make a nice base for stroganoff.

I didn't roll my pasta thin enough and it was a bit doughier than I usually care for, but it certainly didn't stop me from eating it.  The sage in the pasta is subtle, but makes a nice complement to the slightly sweet taste of the pumpkin filling.

You can use canned pumpkin for this recipe, but if you are feeling ambitious like I was, you can roast your own pumpkin to make it.

ROASTING PUMPKINS -- Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees. Slice pie pumpkin into quarters and place face down in a baking dish. Cover with foil and bake for 1-1/2 hours.

Remove from oven and allow to cool, 20-30 minutes. Scrape out the seeds and stringy stuff (yes, that's an official culinary term).

Scoop out pumpkin flesh and puree in a food processor or squish with a potato masher.

Crumble Top Butternut Squash Pie

YAY!  It's fall and that means hearty fall foods, squashy dishes, and wintery spices.  I've come up with some variations on some recipes I've found, and a couple new ones too, using winter squashes.  So to start off with, here's a variation on a pumpkin pie recipe (because it's never too soon for pie).

Crumble Top Butternut Squash Pie

filling
2 to 2-1/2 cups roasted butternut squash
  (need a 2-3 lb butternut squash)
1 (14 oz.) can sweetened condensed milk
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 tbsp Sugar in the Raw
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp vanilla

crust
1-9" deep dish crust (pre-made or homemade)

crumble top
4 tbsp Sugar in the Raw
2 tbsp flour
1 tsp cinnamon
2 tbsp cold butter, diced
2/3 cup pecans, chopped
1/3 cup walnuts, chopped

FILLING

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.  Quarter the squash, remove the seeds and place face down on a cookie sheet covered with foil.  FYI, the squash seeps liquid while it cooks so will be messy.

Sorry about no photos for the roasting prep, I have them, they're just trapped on my camera and I can't find the cord to be able to get them off.  Maybe someday...

Bake covered with foil for 1-1/2 hours.  Once cooked, remove from oven and allow to cool.  Once cool, scoop out the flesh and mash with a potato masher, or puree in a food process.

Bump up the oven temperature to 425 degrees.

In a large bowl, mix the butternut squash puree with the condensed milk and eggs.  Whisk together until mostly smooth.  Add in the salt, vanilla and Sugar in the Raw.

Pour into the pie shell and bake for 15 minutes.

CRUMBLE

While the pie is pre-baking, mix together the Sugar in the Raw, flour and cinnamon.  Using a pastry blend, work in the cold butter dices until the mixture is crumbly.  Add in the nuts and mix well.

Once it's 15 minutes are up, remove the pie from the oven and drop the temperature to 350 degrees.  Sprinkle the crumble topping on the pie and place back in the oven for another 30-35 minutes.

Once it's all baked up, you can serve the pie hot, or cold if you want to save it for later. 



NOTES

It's definitely another savory sweet, so if you want to sweeten it up a bit more, a drizzle of caramel would not come amiss.

You're probably more familiar with Sugar in the Raw in the small packets, but you can get a baking sized box in the grocery store.  If you don't have it but desperately want to make the pie, you could substitute white sugar, but use about 1/3 less than the recipe calls for.

Coconut-Corn Ice Cream with Brown Sugar Syrup and Peanuts

This one is coming to you a little late...both in terms of season and posting...but it's worth it.  I know we're at the tail end of corn season, but keep this on hand for next year summer...or use frozen corn cobs to put this together.

Are you ready for this?  Savory ice cream.  I KNOW!!!  It sounds crazy, but it's crazy good.  This is from the same issue that featured the garam masala buttered-creamed corn and was too good to pass up.  The reason I'm posting a little later in the evening is because "someone" didn't read the instructions closely and discovered that it takes a couple of hours to pull it all together so make sure you take the time into account when you try it.

Coconut-Corn Ice Cream with Brown Sugar Syrup and Peanuts
page 79, Bon Appetit, August 2012 -- directions paraphrased

ice cream
6 ears of corn, husked
2 cans (13.5-14 oz) coconut milk
3/4 cups sweetened condensed milk

brown sugar syrup
2 tsp coriander seeds
1 cup dark brown sugar, packed
1/3 cup water
1/2 tsp whole black peppercorns
kosher salt

garnish
1 cup salted roasted peanuts, coarsely chopped

ICE CREAM

Using the largest holes on a box grater, coarsely grate corn kernels from cobs into a large bowl (or container) and reserve cobs.

Heat coconut milk in a large saucepan over medium heat until almost simmering.  Add grated corn, corn cobs, and condensed milk.  Cook stirring occasionally, until mixture barely begins to simmer, about 5 minutes. 

Remove saucepan from heat, discard cobs, then cover and let steep for 1 hour.

Strain corn mixture through a fine-mesh sieve into a medium bowl, pressing on solids to extract as much liquid as possible.  Discard solids (see notes).

Cover mixture and chill for 4 hours or overnight.  Once thoroughly chilled, process mixture in ice cream maker according to machine directions.

Transfer to an airtight container (with cover) and freeze at least 3 hours and up to 1 week.

SYRUP

Toast coriander seeds in a small dry skillet over medium heat, stirring often, until fragrant, 1-2 minutes.

Transfer to a cutting board and crush with bottom of pan or with a mortar and pestle or rough chopped in a coffee/spice grinder.

Stir sugar and 1/3 cup water in a small saucepan over medium-low heat until sugar dissolves.  Add coriander and peppercorns, season with salt.

Bring to a simmer over medium heat, swirling pan occasionally and brushing down the sides with a wet pastry brush until slightly thickened, about 5 minutes.

Remove from heat and let cool.  Strain, cover and chill for up to 1 month.

SERVE

Scoop out, drizzle with syrup and garnish with peanut pieces.

NOTES

As you may have noticed in the first photo, grating kernels off a cob is very messy work.  I would cover anything in the surrounding area with something that can easily be cleaned.  Might not hurt to wear an apron...and/or goggles.  It also produces a lot of liquid that you can discard, or save to use with something else...what else, I don't know yet, working on coming up with something.

In the original recipe, it says to discard the grated corn slush after you strain the seeped liquid.  I found that's it's actually pretty tasty and would recommend holding onto it to either (1) eat as is, (2) use as an alternative/addtional topping to the ice cream, or (3) I bet it would be nummers over some vanilla pudding.  Or you can just toss it.

Easiest way to chop the peanuts, is to put them in a ziplock baggie and pound on them with a mallet until they break into the size pieces you want.

Special note about the syrup...OMG it's sooooo good.  The brown sugar and peppercorns work really well together.

Creamed Corn with Garam Masala Butter

Now I've never been a huge fan of creamed corn, too bland and mooshy for my taste, but the garam masala butter piqued my interested so I thought I would give it a whirl for you guys.  Let me tell you, there is a WORLD of difference between canned creamed corn and the fresh-made version.  And the butter, the garam masala gives it an oddly non-sweet sweet taste.  I liked it, I liked it very much and hope you will too.

The recipe is from the August 2012 Bon Appetit magazine, though I halved the recipe since I'm not serving a small army.  I also did not make the garam masala from scratch because, well, I'm a working gal and there's only so much time I have during the week to lavish on the fancy stuff, besides, I had enough of the pre-made left in my spice cabinet to cover this recipe.

Creamed Corn with Garam Masala Butter
page 79, Bon Appetit, August 2012 -- recipe halved and directions paraphrased

5 large ears corn, husked
1/4 cup water
4 tbsp (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, divided
1/4 cup finely chopped onion
3/4 tsp minced garlic (1-1/2 cloves)
1/2 tsp kosher salt, plus more
2-1/4 tsp garam masala

Cut kernels from cobs in to a large bowl (should make about 4 cups). Scrape cobs with the back of a large knife to release juices into bowl.  I cut mine into a glass baking dish to give myself some room to maneuver, I would use whatever kind of dish you are most comfortable with.

Combine half the kernels with juice (2 cups) and 1/4 cup water in a blender; puree until smooth.

Melt 1 tbsp butter in  a large saucepan over low heat.  Stir in onion, garlic, and 1/2 tsp salt.  Cover and cook about 10 minutes, stirring often until onion is soft and translucent.  Do NOT brown.  The recipe in the magazine said to add water by the tablespoons if your onions dry while cooking, but I found that I didn't need to because the cover helped keep in moisture.

Add pureed corn and remaining kernels and cook, stirring occasionally until corn is tender, about 10 minutes.  Stir in 1 tbsp of butter and salt to taste.  I bumped up the heat to medium-low to help with the cooking, my corn was tender, but still had a little crisp to it which I liked.  You can cook for longer until it's the consistency you want.

Heat remaining 2 tbsp of butter in a small saucepan over medium heat.  Add 2-1/4 tsp garam masala and a pinch of salt.  Whisk until fragrant, about 15 seconds.

Drizzle over creamed corn.  Tasty and different (in a good way)!

Corn: It's A-maize-ing

Was talking with my friend Ducky about a tapas restaurant that she went to and she mentioned an interesting appetizer that used corn water as one of it's ingredients...corn water.  Hmmm.  Then today my friend Marie hand-me-downed some of her Bon Appetit magazines and in one was a feature on corn with some really intriguing recipes, that I was not ready to produce tonight.  So you know what that means...

CORN

Corn may not be a superfood in the sense that I have been using that term throughout this blog, but it is a super food.  Corn is such a common and familiar food item that I doubt many people have ever given much thought to just how deeply ingrained corn is in both our world and food history.

Corn is the commonly used name for maize.  Maize is a cereal.  Cereals are those grasses which are cultivated for the edible parts of their grain (grain = endosperm + germ + bran).  Corn is native to Central American and Mexico where it is steeped in the culture and traditions of those areas.  In fact, it was the cultivation of maize that transformed the ancient Incas from a nomadic society to an agrarian society.  From there it traveled north to North America with the migration of Native Americans, it traveled Europe in the 16th Century with the Spanish explorers and to China and the Far East via Portughese traders.

As with most foods which have survived from ancient times, corn and its by-products were used not only culinarily, but medicinally as well.  Native Americans used corn smut (a plant fungus, not naughty corn stories) as an antihemorrhagic and vasocontrictor.  Other corn by-products were used to cures sores, dysentery, urinary disorders, and ulsers.  Even in "modern" times corn oil was used in products to relieve hay fever, asthma, eczema, headaches and dandruff (gives a whole new meaning to corn flakes).

Though nutritious, because it lacks in niacin, corn is not considered a "whole" food, but rather one that works best in tandem with others.  The Iroquois used to grow corn with it's "inseparable sisters" -- beans and squash.  All three would be planted together -- the bean would grow up the corn stalks and the squash would be planted between rows to help fend against weeds -- and together could make a whole meal.

Corn is rich in riboflavin, thiamin, good carbs, beta-carotene and antioxidants like vitamin A.  It's high carotenoid levels are considered useful in protecting against harmful aging of the eyes, skin, heart and brain. 

Corn is a nonglutinous grain so for those trying to avoid or cut back on wheat, yeast or gluten in their products, corn tortillas might make a good substitute -- though you always want to check the labeling on the package as some products may still contain small amounts of those.

Polenta, which is an Italian cornmeal, makes a good substitute for rice or couscous and can be used to make wheat-free baked goods.  Though again, always check the labels on any product you buy to make sure.

One of the reasons that corn has made a lasting impression is because it is a remarkably versatile and resilient plant that can adapt to different climates and altitudes.  Of all the corn grown in the world, by most accounts only 10% is used as food.  But it's by-products are used in oils, liquors, soda, beer, plastics, paper and textiles.

There's SO much more to the history and use of corn, but it's a start.  I like that you can use it for both savory and sweet dishes and will be exploring at least one savory-sweet combo (cuz you know I like those).

Spicy Lamb (Curry Dish 3)

To disclaim once more, this is not a super hot dish.  You can bump up the chili powder if you need more kick, but since I knew my audience included GP mom who prefers not to have to wipe her nose or tears while eating, I didn't adjust mine.  It still has a really nice flavor and is quite filling.

Spicy Lamb

1 tbsp veggie oil
4 cardamon pods
1 cinnamon stick
4 whole cloves
1 large shallot, finely chopped
1 lb ground lamb
2 tsp garam masala
1 tsp chili powder
4 cloves garlic, minced
3 tsp grated fresh ginger
1 tsp sea salt
1 cup potatoes, small dice
1 (13.5 oz) can diced tomatoes
1/2 cup hot water
2 tbsp fresh cilantro, chopped
2 tbsp fresh mint, chopped

Heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Stir-fry cardamom pods, cinnamon stick, and cloves until fragrant, about a minute.

Add shallots and cook until soft, about 1-2 minutes.

Stir in ground lamb, garam masala, chili powder, garlic, ginger, and salt.

Cook for 4-5 minutes until lamb changes color.

Add potatoes, tomatoes with juice, and water. Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer about 10-12 minutes until potatoes are tender.

Remove from heat, add cilantro and mint.

Serve with rice.

NOTES

If for any ethical, allergic or preferential reason you don't like lamb, you can easily subsitute your preference mild ground meat into this recipe (chicken, pork or turkey). 

Keep an eye on your potatoes, it may take less than 10 minutes, it may take more, depends on your potatoes and your heat so judge for yourself when you think it's done.

Remember that there is a cinnamon stick, four cardamon pods and four cloves in your dish -- might want to give your guests a kindly heads up so they don't chomp into them.

Curried Potatoes with Peas (Curry Dish 2)

Here's a yummy veggie curry dish that you can't go wrong with.  As with the Molee, this is not a super spicy dish, considerate it a baseline recipe.  Will give you a nice curried flavor, but if you want to make it a little kickier, play around with the spices.  A touch more chili powder and/or cumin will help notch up the heat level quite nicely.

Curried Potatoes with Peas

1-1/2 lbs potatoes, cut into bite-sized pieces
2 tsp yellow mustard seed
2 tbsp oil
2 medium onions, sliced
2 cloves garlic, crushed
2 tsp grated fresh ginger
1 tsp ground turmeric
1 tsp garam masala
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp chili powder
1/2-3/4 cup water
2/3 cup peas
2 tbsp chopped fresh mint

Peel potatoes and cut into small cubes.  Soak in water until ready to drain and use.

In a large dry pan, cook mustard seeds over medium heat until seeds start to pop.  They will literally start to pop up from the pan.

Add in oil, onion, garlic, and ginger. Cook it for 4-5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the onion is softened and translucent.

Add turmeric, garam masala, chili powder, cumin, and potatoes (remember to drain them first). Stir until the  potato pieces are well-coated.

Add in 1/2 cup water, then cover and simmer for 15-20 minutes.  Stirring occasionally, simmer until potato is fork tender.  If needed, add more water and continue cooking while covered until done.

Mix in the peas. Cover and simmer for another 3-5 minutes or until potato is fully cooked and the liquid is all absorbed.

Stir in mint and it is ready to serve.