The Nation's Health

Squash Ravioli

This week I decided to be a little adventurous with my cooking - ok, so ravioli may not be too out of the ordinary, but I found a recipe for Sweet Potato Ravioli on (never homer)maker with a tofu filling and thought I'd give it a shot. They turned out pretty good and plenty filling, my only suggestion is to eat them with some type of sauce (I threw some season diced tomatoes over them and called it delicious) unless you really enjoy the taste of tofu. But the dough would work with any filling. I used squash instead of sweet potato - the potato probably has a little more starch, but these turned out just as good.

Notice the olive oil special ordered from Mistra (Sparta) Greece :)

Ingredients

Dough:
~2c. winter squash, cooked and mashed
1 c whole wheat flour
1 c white flour
1 T olive oil
1/2 tsp salt
Added water if dough is too dry.

Filling:
1 lb firm tofu, pressed
2 tsp lemon juice
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 c nutritional yeast... you could also use parmesan if you'd like
1/4 c chopped parsley
Dash of pepper
Any other spices you'd like.

Direction

Start out with the dough. Mix everything together, careful to add the flour - you may need less, you may need more. Knead dough with your hands. Divide into 3 balls and roll out on clean floured surface. Dough will need to be about 1/8 inch thick, next cut out round circles 2-3" diameter, I used a jar top, but a biscuit cutter of glass would work just as well. You'll probably need to keep re-rolling with the dough until it's all in circle forms.

For the filling, in a large bowl, mush up the tofu with your hands until crumbly (yep, you'll get your hands dirty). Add in garlic, lemon juice, salt, pepper, and continue to mush and squish with your hands until the mixture becomes a ricotta cheese type consistency. Then add in the nutritional yeast/parmesan, dash of olive oil, and parsley and mix with a fork.

Filling the pasta, take your dough rounds and place 1 T of filling on to half of the rounds, cover with the other half and press to seal the edges. You can then boil the pasta, but I decided to pan fry. Careful to brown on each side on medium heat.

Serve with your favorite sauce and enjoy!