Gnocci Craving

Having an odd craving for gnocci, so I thought I'd browse Google. I unexpectedly found this: Swiss Chard Gnocci Recipe. Sadly, I just yanked out all my swiss chard the other day (believe me, it was time....it was all old and gross and mildewy), but when the next batch gets going I will have to try this.

Beet Ravioli

I've looked several times at beet ravioli pictures and recipes online, so when I found myself with a couple of beets and nothing in particular to do with them, I thought I'd try it out. I roughly followed Martha Stewart's Recipe and in hind sight I wish I had followed it more closely, because it turned out to be a complete failure.

Here's how it started: I had four beets, one of which was a Chioggia, which is shown below. (Btw I don't think I'll grow these next year...they aren't that fantastic looking and lose what color they have during cooking





I roasted all four beets, 350 F for a bit over an hour. I refrigerated them overnight, then the next day I peeled them and threw them into my mini food processor.


I then added two eggs to the food processor and blended it up.


This liquid went into a couple cups of flour (roughly half all purpose, half semolina)


I then rolled out the dough using my Kitchenaid and because the dough was so soft and kind of mushy, I decided to refrigerate that overnight. The consistancy of the dough should have been my first clue that I'd f***ed up, but instead I refrigerated the pasta sheets, which actually just made it crumbly and tough. Not helpful.

I mixed up a filling with herbed goat cheese, ricotta, and some shredded mozzerella and loaded it all up into my Kitchenaid ravioli maker. Here are most of the results:


Only a few raviolis ended up looking half decent.


However, because I hate to waste my own work and am somewhat clever, all was not lost. I froze the good looking raviolis for another night. With the demented raviolis and the leftover filling, I decided to put together a lasagna! I ran out to the garden and clipped some chard.


Then I layered that onto the ravioli mess.


Then the cheese filling.


And, somewhat to my horror, some Six Cheese Ragu. Don't get me wrong, I have a unreasonable LOVE for jars of store bought red sauce, but pouring it onto my homemade "ravioli", fresh cut chard, and a decadent goat cheese filling was decidedly sacreligious. BUT it was the only sauce I had on hand, so on it went.


I topped that with a bit more retarded ravioli and pasta scraps, another layer of sauce, and shredded mozzarella.





In the end, it actually was pretty delicious. The pasta texture was a little off, but was honestly quite tasty. I think I will probably even make the beet pasta again. Next time I think I'll follow the recipe a little closer, and will probably skip the ravioli making and go for another lasagna. It would be fun to make a lasagna with red pasta sheets and a white sauce, a reverse of the usual colors.

Stay tuned for a few days from now when I use the ravioli that weren't disasters.

Fava Fest

The fava bean plants are starting to look a little sad in this summer weather. I suspicion they lose their ability to fight off bugs and diseases in the heat, because their leaves are droopy and munched. Luckily, there was a pretty good crop of mature beans on them. I had been worried when I planted them that it was too late and I wouldn't get a harvest. I think the heat did cause some blossoms and small beans to drop, but those that were into their development already seem to still be maturing just fine.

I harvested about half of the beans that were on the plants. Any that looked like they could use a bit longer to mature stayed on the plants. I pulled about 3 & 3/4 pounds off the plants. My understanding (from an article about the Santa Monica Farmers Market) is that favas run for about $3/pound, so I definitely recouped my seed costs on this one, especially if a few more pounds are still out there growing.


The sad part about favas is the amount of effort that goes into making them edible. First, you have to shell the favas.


You might think these are edible, but in reality there is a thick, pale skin still on the beans. In order to peel this off, you have to boil them in salt water for ~1min. If you cook them any longer, the beans start to get mushy, so after their brief boil they get put right into an ice bath. This loosens the skin which you can then pierce with a fingernail and squeeze the bean out.


In the end, I ended up with about 1 & 1/4 pounds of edible favas. Boy are they delicious though! I put half into the freezer for later and half into the fridge (after I snacked on a few!) I'm hoping to make something with the ones in the fridge in the next few days.

Beet and Chard Flatbread Pizza

Yesterday I pulled two beautiful beets out of the ground. This got me looking for something interesting to do with them. So today I made a DELICIOUS beet and chard pizza.



Instead of a traditional pizza sauce like pesto or marinara I made a sauce by blending chard, some oil, and some garlic.

The dough recipe I got from this website. If I'm honest, I'm not sure I'll use it again. The dough was very elastic and it took forever to stretch it thin. I had to stretch it and let it rest and stretch it again about 4 times. I even was letting the dough rest stretched over an upside-bowl to try to get gravity to work in my favor.

I roasted the beets yesterday. An hour in foil in a 350 degree oven and they were seriously the tastiest beets I've ever had. It was all I could do to not eat them right then.

Chioggia Beet (sadly, they lost their pink/white stripes in the cooking)

Slices of beets, a few slices of mozzarella, and topped with a little thyme, and then into the oven. I already had a pan preheating (not as good as a pizza stone but oh well!), so I slid it onto the pan and baked it at 450 for 10 mins. The last minute I switched it to broil to brown the cheese a little.

Changes for next time: better quality cheese, different crust recipe, and cook it a little longer to brown the crust more.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Chard Recipes to Try

I'm looking for chard recipes that would be good for summer dinners. So far I've found this flatbread pizza that makes a sort of chard puree sauce. I think it would be delicious with a little turkey sausage (which happened to be on sale at Ralphs this week!) in place of the fake bacon. I also found these very pretty chard wraps with polenta, gorgonzola, walnuts, and raisins. Since I'm not really a raisin fan, I might try that second recipe with apricots or craisins. The recipe also calls for pancetta, but I could easily make it without to serve a vegetarian dish. Perhaps I'll try these out as a potential entree for the BBQ I'm holding in a couple weeks.

Recipe Therapy

I was out watering my garden today only to find that one of my beloved dogs snapped my Hawaiian Currant tomato plant right off its stem. In an attempt to calm myself down I came inside to look up recipes. I found this squash gnocci and spinach recipe and a fresh tomato soup recipe, both of which I must try later this year.

As for the Hawaiian Currant plant, I guess I'll be paying a visit to another one of Laurel's plant sales this weekend to see if I can locate a suitable replacement. I was REALLY excited about this plant considering I'd ordered one last year and didn't get one, but I suppose any red cherry type would be satisfactory. In the meantime, the dogs are seriously in the dog house.

On a somewhat more positive note, it appears the asian greens have started to sprout, the radishes have definitely sprouted, and I'm putting some chive and scallion seeds into my tomato bed today.

Must Try

Someday when I build up enough courage, I'm going to have to try this Raspberry & Green Tomato Cobbler