White Bean and Artichoke Stuffed Ravioli with a Lemon-Wine Sauce

For someone who has a deep and unabiding love for pasta, it's really sort of amazing that I've never tried my hand at making pasta from scratch ... until now, that is.

I approached this particular project with the preparation that one needs to climb Everest. I read books, searched the internet for pasta dough recipes (Spoiler Alert: after all of that researching, I ended up going with the recipe on the back of the Bob's Red Mill Semolina Flour bag. But now that I know that I can actually make ravioli, I will definitely be experimenting!), tried to come up with a tasty filling, and had a little too much fun at a cooking supplies store.

And when I was actually able to produce said raviolis, I celebrated AS THOUGH I had climbed Everest. 

I took this picture for posterity's sake.  This is also about the time I started doing my equivalent of a touchdown dance.

Now, even though I'm being a bit dramatic, don't be intimidated by ravioli-making.  It's not as complicated as I thought it would be--though it will give you a good goin'-back-to-the-good-'ol-days-and-makin'-things-from-scratch boost.  Homesteading, here we come? Er, maybe not.

While I bought a fancy-schmancy ravioli press (I bought it on sale, okay?), you don't need one. A circle-shaped cookie cutter works just fine and will give you slightly bigger raviolis (which means more stuffing in the center!)

For the filling and sauce, I wanted something simple and light so that I could spend my energy concentrating on actual ravioli formation.  The outcome was tasty and very flavorful!

So, without further ado....

White Bean and Artichoke Stuffed Ravioli with a Lemon-Wine Sauce

Pasta Dough (I used the recipe on the bag of Semolina Flour)

1.5 cups of semolina flour

2 eggs

2 tbsp of olive oil

2tbsp of water

1/4 tsp salt

Filling

1/2 cup of drained white beans (I used Great Northern)

4 artichoke hearts (canned)

1 tbsp minced garlic

2 tbsp of white wine

salt and pepper to taste

1/2 cup of shredded Fontina cheese (optional: You can also add shredded vegan mozzarella or no cheese at all)

Sauce

1 tbsp of butter or non-dairy butter spread

1/4 cup of the white beans with the liquid (pureed)

1 tsp of minced garlic

1/4 cup of diced onions

Juice from 1/2 lemon

1 tsp of lemon zest

1/2 cup of white wine

1 tsp of minced basil (julienne some basil for garnish!)

First, make the dough by adding all dough ingredients to a mixer with a dough hook (you can also mix by hand).  Knead the dough in the mixer or by hand for 10 minutes.  Yes, 10 minutes!  Almost every recipe I looked at gave 10 minutes as the suggested time-- it needs that time to come together as dough! Once the dough has come together, lightly flour the dough and let it rest while you work on the filling. 

In a food processor, pulse the ingredients (minus the cheese) for the filling (setting aside the 1/4 cup of beans and liquid for the sauce)until the mixture resembles as paste.  Grate the cheese and add it to the mixture.  Taste for seasonings and add as needed.

Flour EVERYTHING-- the work surface, whatever you'll be using to form the raviolis, the rolling pin, the cat--everything.  The dough is fairly sticky! Ensure that you dough is elastic by kneading it once or twice.  Start by cutting the dough in half and begin rolling out the dough until it's about 1/8th of an inch thick.  If you have a ravioli mold you'll be working with, lay the dough onto the mold, lightly pressing into the indented filling spaces (If you have dough that goes past the mold, cut that off and save it to use for more raviolis).  If you are using the cookie-cutter method, start cutting out circles from the dough. Place about 1 tsp of the filling into each of the ravioli molds--be careful not to overfill the raviolis. 

Roll out the other half of the dough until it's 1/8th of an inch thick and lay it over the mold (if you're using the cookie-cutter, you can simply make more raviolis!). Roll the flat sheet of dough over the ravioli form using a rolling pin, until the raviolis are pressed together (if you've made the cookie-cutter raviolis, you'll want to close the raviolis by lightly scoring the edges with a fork).  At this point, you will be very glad that you went on a flouring spree because you'll need to pull the raviolis out of the mold.  Place formed raviolis onto a piece of parchment paper, put a large pot of water on the stove to boil and do a quick touchdown dance. Congratulations!  You made ravioli!

For the sauce: In a food processor, process the reserved beans and liquid until creamy.  Add butter to a skillet on medium heat.  Once the butter is melted, add the garlic and onions and saute until the onions are translucent.  Add the bean cream, wine, lemon juice, and basil and simmer on low heat while you boil the ravioli.

The raviolis are usually cooked when they float to the top of the pot (make sure you test one, in case yours needs to be boiled a little longer)-- about 4 minutes. Add the raviolis and a little bit of the starchy pasta water to the sauce and let the raviolis simmer in the sauce for a couple of minutes. 

Serve warm and garnish with some basil and shredded Fontina cheese!

 

Enjoy!

Hearty Vegetarian 'Bolognese' Sauce (Quick Sunday Dinner!)

I think I've overdone it this week.  Between matzo-palooza earlier this week and the pre-Easter See's Candy binge I went on over the weekend (there was also a salted caramel ice cream episode that I'm trying to pretend didn't happen--except it did--and it was amazing...), I'm pretty sure that my nutrition has taken a bit of a hit.

So in an effort to get myself back to my usual (and equally tasty) fare, I've decided to go with something comforting, tasty, and mostly vegetable.  The recipe for this vegetarian 'Bolognese' was actually born from the sauce used on my Italian Stuffed Cabbage Rolls.  It occurred to me that it might make an excellent Bolognese sauce on its own.

I added crumbled, Italian style seitan (wheat gluten protein) to the sauce, but you can add tofu or nothing at all (or you can add ground meat of some kind--but then it's no longer vegetarian).

This sauce is chock-full of veggies and has a rich, hearty flavor from the red wine and tamari.  It's as easy as pouring lots of things into a large pot and letting the mixture go for 20 minutes.  You're left with a hearty sauce that tastes great on pastas of all kinds!

Hearty Vegetarian 'Bolognese" Sauce

Makes 4-5 servings

Ingredients

1 cup of chopped onions

2 tbsp of minced garlic

1 tbsp of olive oil

1.5 cups of roughly chopped carrots

2 roughly chopped zucchini

I can of artichoke hearts in water (drained)

1/2 cup red wine

1/4 cup tamari or balsamic vinegar

1 can of no salt added tomato sauce

Italian seasoning/ red pepper flakes/ salt and pepper--to taste

1/4 cup nutritional yeast (optional)

1 cup of seitan/tofu/meat (optional)

Add the carrots, zucchini, and artichokes to the food processor and pulse until finely chopped.  In a large pot add the tbsp of olive oil and saute the garlic and onions until the onions are translucent.  Add the chopped vegetables and saute, after seasoning with salt and pepper, for a minute or two.  Add the red wine, tamari/balsamic vinegar, Italian seasoning, and protein-of-choice. Let the mixture reduce for a couple of minutes. Add the tomato sauce and optional nutritional yeast.  Test for seasonings (I usually add another layer of Italian seasoning and red pepper flakes).  Simmer on low for 20 minutes. 

Top your pasta of choice with the sauce and garnish with cheese/cheeze of choice!

Enjoy this quick Sunday meal!