Spinach Avocado Ravioli

Spinach Avocado Ravioli

Ravioli! Something we’ve rarely these years and decided though it’s time consuming we’d make our own.

For the pasta pastry, we used the pastry recipe here:

http://goveganmeow.blogspot.com/2011/02/spinach-and-mushroom-ravioli.html

As most vegan ravioli recipes focussed around using something to substitute the ‘cheese’, such as tofu, cashew nuts, or vegan cheese we thought it easier to make our own filling.

For the filling,we used:

-        1 bag spinach, watercress and rocket

-        1 can red kidney beans, mashed

-        1 avocado

-        1/2 a green peper and 1/2 a red one (though it doesn’t really matter)

-        1 courgette

-        1 onion

-        Garlic, to taste (Conor loves his garlic, so probably 5-6 cloves)

-        Basil, pepper, oregano, thyme

For the sauce (a standard tomato type sauce):

- Can of chopped tomatoes and few tablespoons tomato puree (to taste)

- 1 onion

- Garlic to taste

- More herbs etc: basil, pepper, oregano

1. We chopped everything up and started with frying the onion. To this we added the courgette, avocado and pepper.
2. When all this was soft enough (as it’d be put into little ravioli parcels), we added the mashed kidney beans and garlic. Finally the spinach, watercress and rocket and seasonings.
3. We cooked all this until it was very soft and mushy enough to be made into balls to be put into the pastry. 
4. For the pastry, we placed the balls on the pastry sheet (which we had divided into two). We then overlay the second half of the pastry sheet over this and cut into squares around the balls of filling. The edges of these we then flattened with a fork to give a nice design.
5. When all was done we plopped the ravioli one by one into a pot of boiling water, boiling for about 10minutes and stirring gently. We then drained the pot and put them on a plate, adding some tomato sauce.

There are two things we found really made this recipe: the avocado and the rocket. The avocado gave a lovely creamyness to the ravioli and if doing this recipe again we’d use more and cream the avocado first (adding it last so). The rocket was a good idea too – the shop had been sold out of plain bags of spinach so we had to settle on a mixed bag of spinach, watercress and rocket and this turned out to be so lucky in the end. Rocket has a rather strong flavour comparable (I thought) with blue cheese. I would perhaps use a bit less next time, though it really added an edge to the recipe. 

Pasta Bake

Pasta Bake

This is a simple recipe with a deliciously interesting result. It’ll take a while to make, but like lasagne or other things of its nature it can be stored and heated up with ease.

Ingredients:

-        Your favourite pasta shapes (wheels for me!)

-        1 onion                                                                           - 3 cloves of garlic

-        A courgette         `                                                          - a Red & Yellow pepper

-        3 Tomatoes                                                                    - some Sundried tomato

-        A tin of tomatoes                                                            - 3Tbs of tomato puree

-        A tin of Kidney beans                                                     - Lots & Lots of Spinach (it’ll shrink)

-        Some mushrooms                                                           - Herbs & Spices (epically paprika)

-        Or Whatever else you’d normally put into a tomatoey yam yam…..

-        1/2 a cup of Soy butter (we used the ‘Pure’ brand  – 99c in Dunne’s)

-        2-3 cups of Soy milk                                                      - about a cup of plain flour

1.      Pre-heat oven to 180˚C& boil the pasta shapes in water

2.      Firstly fry up the onions, courgettes, peppers and mushrooms

3.      Then add the chopped garlic, the various tomato incarnations & Kidney beans

4.      Add ALL the Spinach!

5.      Making the sauce on top:

a.      Heat up butter in a lightly heated saucepan

b.      Once melted, add the flower slowly and mix it into the butter

c.      Pour in the soy milk in and stir till all mixed up

6.      Mix the tomatoey stuff with the pasta shapes etc.. then place in a big ol’ cooking dish

7.      Pour the sauce all over the stuff & lightly top with paprika (looks pretty)

8.      Put in oven for 30-40mins & serve with joy!

Enchilada's

Enchilada's

Enchilada’s are one of those things that most people (unlike me) have tried in some form or other it seems. So this here was our first, especially mine, attempt at them.

Having not much an idea how to make them, we browsed some recipes online until we found a simple enough one to follow. The recipe was roughly adapted from the one found here:

http://www.care2.com/greenliving/paul-mccartney-vegetable-enchiladas.html#ixzz1rHWNZ0Mx

We made the sauce shown here exactly, but altered the filling. Though I’m sure it’s lovely with tofu, there’s nowhere nearby to by student priced tofu around here and that bus trip to buy some usually is reserved for recipes that really can’t be done without it or when we’re particularly in the mood for it.

For the filling instead we used:

-        1 Can of kidney beans

-        1 Can black eyed beans

-        1 onion and some spring onion

-        Garlic, to taste

-        2 Peppers (of varying colours)

-        2 tomatoes

-        1 average pack mushrooms

-        1 cup of sweet corn

-        1 jar salsa sauce.

We heated it all up on the pan together (in the usual kind of order, onions first, then peppers, mushrooms, beans, sweetcorn and followed by salsa sauce, garlic and tomatoes) before placing this into about 5 (though you could make it 6) large tortilla wraps. By large, I mean the ones the size of a plate if not bigger. You could supposedly make several smaller ones too.

These we put into an oven dish and covered with the sauce before cooking for about 25minutes.

It was extremely delicious and filling, though we’ve been told since that enchilada’s are not to be completely covered by the sauce (as we did it!) and perhaps should be more crispy. Next time I suppose! J