Green. Orange. Raucous. St. Patrick's day is exciting!
Oh St. Patty’s Day, or, as I used to call it in my youth-ier days, Night-Before-Me-Throwing-Up-and-Weeping-Most-of-the-Next-Day Day. Now that I am oodles more mature (read: saddled with three children), I thought why not make a Irish-type recipe in lieu of making a fool of myself in a public, jig-attempting forum? (Did I mention I’m not sure if I’m even a little bit Irish? I don’t think I am, but that will become apparent when you see how cliché and perhaps a little offensive my train of thought led me in the development of this recipe.)
So, St. Patrick’s Day begs for green. Irish people LOVE potatoes. Or, at the very least they eat a bunch of them, I read once. And I’m almost positive the Irish are famously pale. And Lucky on the the Lucky Charms Box has red hair. And thus, St. Patty’s Day Ravioli was born.
I swear I’m not racist. Oh. Man.
INGREDIENTS:
FILLING
- 1 med-small onion, chopped
- water , for sautéing
- 3 leaves kale, chopped
- sea salt, to taste
- apple cider vinegar or lemon juice, optional, to taste
- 1 large potato , baked
- 1-2 med-small slices of bread, toasted
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1/2 cup fresh italian parsley
PASTA
- 1 pound pasta dough
SAUCE
- 2 handsome squash (bright orange and pumpkin-y are nice!)
- 1 med-large onion, chopped
- 1-2 cloves garlic, minced
- sea salt, to taste
- 1 cup italian parsley, chopped
METHOD:
1. Obtain fresh pasta dough. Do this by making your own or purchasing commercial vegan lasagna sheets.
2. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 400ºF. Slice squash in half, remove pulpy-bits and seedy-wigs and place face-up on baking sheet. Bake for 40-50 minutes until very, very tender.
FILLING:
3. Bake (throw it in with your squash or microwave) potato until tender.
4. In a medium sauté pan, sauté (go figure!) onions in a bit of (salted) water* for about 3 minutes, until tender. Add chopped kale and sauté for 1-2 minutes more, until vibrant green and slightly tender.
5. Dice baked potato and add it, kale mixture, toasted bread, garlic, lemon juice* (or vinegar), parsley and salt* to the bowl of your food processor or blender. Pulse until smooth, taste and adjust seasoning as necessary.
Filling Before...
Filling After...
SAUCE:
6. In large saucepan, sauté onions and garlic in a little salted water* until tender (2-3 minutes over medium-high heat).
7. Scoop in roasted squash flesh and stir vigourously to make it smooth. Add as much water as it takes to reach your desired consistency.
8. Cook for 5 minutes more over low heat. Remove from heat just before serving and stir in salt and parsley* to taste.
Nice Irish-y colour contrast, no?
PASTA
10. Based on how big you like your ravioli, pick a glass out of your cupboard with an appealing diameter. Use glass to cut circles out of your pasta dough (if you are making your own dough, you will be able to return the scraps to your pasta machine or rolling pin to start process again. You can try to roll out commercial dough again, but I have not tried this and have my doubts. They do something to it to make it a little stiff, so you may end up with some silly lacy looking pasta cut-outs to feed on). Cover circles with a damp tea-towel while you work so they don’t get all crackly.
11. Once you have as many circles as possible, lay out 4 at a time. Depending on the size of your circles, spoon 1/2-2 teaspoons of filling onto center of pasta-o and moisten outer edges with warm water. Now you can either top with another pasta circle and seal edges with the tines of a fork (or other fancy tool, if you have one) or decide to make agnolotti instead and fold circles in half and seal. Repeat steps as many times as necessary.
Yeah. I cheated with my fancy folder. But I made my pasta from scratch. With locally grown and milled flour, so that's got to count for something!
12. Bring a large pot of salted water to a rolling boil. Add your little love bundles, reduce heat and cook for 3 minutes. Drain and rinse. Serve drizzled in roasted squash sauce and drink a whole lot cuz it be St. Paddy’s Day! (or not. But whatevs.)
NOTES:
*I came up with this recipe in the throes of my local food challenge, so, obviously, my seasoning options were limited. Might I suggest adding some ginger to your roasted squash purrée? As we all know, lots of Irish people could be considered, well, gingers. Also, feel free to sauté in olive oil or use whatever fresh herbs you have on hand in the filling. The world is your vegan oyster, whatever that may look like.
**I used whole wheat pasta dough for this recipe, but spinach infused pasta dough would have been so much more Irish-y. Do that instead. Don’t do what my husband suggested, which was use white flour to represent paleness and sprinkle on a little cayenne to make freckles. The only frame of reference we have is Conan O’Brien. Cut us some slack!!!!!