Virtual Vegan Potluck! Homemade Ravioli

Have you heard of the Virtual Vegan Potluck? I am thrilled to be taking part and would like to thank Annie at anunrefinedvegan for hosting it this year. I struggled to decide what to male, and after no shortage of soul-food searching, I began to settle on Italian food, since it’s my favorite style, which only narrowed my options slightly.

A few years ago, the Blonde got me a pasta maker, so I figured that for dinner tonight, in the Virtual Vegan Potluck, I’d make Roasted Garlic and Butternut Squash Filled Ravioli, with Green Tomato Pesto.

Yup. I made this. . .

Ingredients:

Filling:
3 cups butternut squash, roasted
3-5 cloves garlic, roasted
3-4 dashes turmeric (for color)
Water as needed (for thinning)
Salt and pepper to taste

Pasta:
1.5 cups flour (I used 00 extra fine, but any flour will work)
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp baking powder
2 1/4 tsp. non-dairy butter (I used Olivio coconut spread)
3/8 cup water

Pesto:
2 cups seeded, chopped green tomatoes
2-3 cloves garlic
1/3 cup basil leaves, tightly packed
2 Tbsp pignoli nuts
2-3 Tbsp. nutritional yeast
salt and pepper to taste

First, roast the butternut squash and garlic and let cool.
While the squash is cooling, combine the flour and baking powder. Once the squash is roasted and cooled, mash it well, and add in the roasted garlic. Combine them well, add the turmeric, salt, and pepper, and set aside.

Blend the filling in your food processor or Vitamix.

Next, make your pasta.

Mix together all of the dry ingredients, then make a mound of the flour, and hollow out a little well in the center.
Add the wet ingredients into the well, and start mixing it with a fork or the dough hooks on your hand mixer, incorporating the water until it is more like a dough, then knead it together by hand. This step can also be done with a mixer and dough hook. I like the feel of the dough in my hands.
The dough will be very dry, but that’s appropriate. Knead it until most or all of the flour is incorporated, then form the dough into a ball.

Make a mound with your flour before mixing in the water.

Wrap the ball in plastic wrap, and let it sit for 20 minutes, to allow the gluten cloak to form. **You can’t afford to skip this step!**

You must let the gluten cloak form or your pasta won’t hold together.

After 20 minutes or so, cut the ball into 1/4s, and work the dough through your pasta maker. Different pasta makers will have different settings, but I use #4 for the ravioli.

Let your pasta sit for a few minutes before you cut it so that it doesn’t stick too much.

Lay our pasta out in sheets, and hook up the ravioli maker to your pasta maker or grab your pastry cutter and filling.

I filled the sheets with about a tablespoon of the filling, and folded them in half, pressing the edges down, and cutting them with my pastry cutter to get the edges right.

About a tablespoon of filling for each ravioli.

Once cut the ravioli need to dry for about 15 minutes before they can be boiled, and they only need about 3 minuets in the water.

You should get about 14 ravioli out of each quarter of the dough ball

While the ravioli dry, make the green tomato pesto.

Dice the tomatoes, and saute them gently over medium to medium-high for about 10 minutes, until most of the moisture in them has been released and evaporated. Add the chopped garlic, and cook for about 2 more minutes, until the garlic is just fragrant.

Be careful not to burn the green tomatoes.

In a food processor, put the basil leaves, pignoli nuts, salt, pepper, and nutritional yeast on the bottom, and dump the tomato and garlic on top, before processing until the texture is about right. The texture should be a little bit thinner than regular basil pesto, but not too much thinner.

Blend until it is combined, and thickens a bit.

Once that is done, cook the ravioli, and top with the pesto, and a little dab of the ravioli filling if you have any left over.

Pretty tasty, once they were finished.

I hope you enjoyed my meal for the Virtual Vegan Potluck!

I hope you have a good time here, and I look forward to hearing what you make when you have a hankering for summer and autumn blended together. For now, I hope you’ll go visit the other main courses in the VVP!  Enjoy!

This is the link to “Chef in Disguise,” the post before mine in the VVP. If you started here, check this one out too!

This is the link to “Living in a Lollypop World,” the post after mine in the VVP. If you started here, check this one out too!

~ by VegansHusband on November 1, 2012.