Ravioli/Cannelloni/Conchiglioni Filling + Ravioli Making!

This is delicious stuffed in any kind of pasta. Recently I've started making my own buckwheat ravioli (pictures follow). I've been using the recipe from Nonna's Italian Kitchen for the pasta, which I won't repost because I haven't modified it, so it's not really mine.

The ravioli filling, however, has been developed by simple trial and error. All of these measurements are approximate. I am a big fan of adding things to taste!

1 459 g block medium tofu, mashed
1/2 cup ground blanched almonds
1/4 cup ground walnuts
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
1/4 cup dry white wine
1 tbsp tahini
1 tbsp shiro (aka white/yellow) miso
2 tsp dried parsley
3 tsp each dried basil and thyme
1 1/2 tsp onion powder
freshly ground black pepper
canola oil for sauteing
10 brown mushrooms, finely chopped (I use food processor)
4 cloves of garlic, finely chopped (I use food processor)
bread crumbs, as needed

Saute garlic and mushrooms on medium heat in oil until most of water is gone from mushrooms. Mix mushrooms and garlic together with all other ingredients except bread crumbs. Mix in bread crumbs as needed to get desired consistency. Especially in ravioli, it helps to have thicker filling that will form a ball that stays together while you work with the pasta, rather than falling all over the place and making the fresh pasta soggy. The filling used in the photos below doesn't actually correspond with the recipe here. It is a chard, mushroom and walnut filling, which was ok, but not as good as the mushroom/yummy tofu stuff. It also was a bit wet and hard to fit in the ravioli without getting bits of it everywhere/in the dough, which can result in holes in your ravioli. Perhaps would have helped to add bread crumbs to the chard filling, and also to food process the chard to almost a paste.

Here are pictures of the ravioli making process. I found this a bit tricky. I used an old hand-crank pasta machine. In Nonna's Italian Kitchen, Grogan says to divide the dough into 8ths to roll out, but I find that too little for my ravioli mould. 6ths was more like it. Roll your portion of dough into a ball, flatten ball slightly, then flour it and run through the machine (setting 3 on my machine the first time through) then fold like a letter and run through again (setting 7 on my machine - I did mine a bit thicker than Grogan recommended to help prevent tearing. Plus, I love me some dough). The mould I used came with a small rolling pin that presumably you're supposed to use to seal the ravioli. I found it just stuck to the dough, so doing by hand worked better. I also greased and floured the mold for easy removal of the completed sheet of ravioli. The easiest way to remove it was to gently work my fingers between the dough and the mould, with the mould inverted so the sheet of ravioli landed on the table as it came loose. My ravioli weren't the most attractive. I think perhaps you're supposed to use a serrated/zigzag cutter to cut them apart (which would match up to the impressions the mold makes on the ravioli sheet) but since I only have a regular pizza cutter, that's what I used. Still tastes the same: delicious!

Run a flattened ball of dough through the machine...

 

Fold it like a letter and run it through again to make a sheet...

Stretch sheet gently over the ravioli mold. Put a tsp of filling into each indentation...

Roll out a second ball of dough, fold, and repeat. Lay over top of the filled bottom sheet of pasta...

Pinch around each ravioli, by feeling for where the edges of the mold are. Cut off any extra dough...

Gently remove the sheet of ravioli...

Ready to cook or freeze. Boil for about 3 minutes...

Topped with home-made tomato sauce, vegan parmesan and olives. Yum!

Best Fudgey Brownies with Lavender Frosting

I've made lots of brownie recipes over the years. These originally came from a kid's cookbook, and they were the first brownies I ever made. I have re-made this recipe several times over since. I think the original recipe paired them with chocolate frosting, which is also a solid option. I made these for company the other day, and was asked for the recipe, so it occurred to me I should post it.

Brownies
1/2 cup coconut oil
1 cup semi-sweet dark chocolate chips
2 tbsp freshly ground flax seed (use a coffee grinder to get them fine)
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 tsp natural vanilla extract
1/4 cup water
1 cup semi-sifted stone ground whole wheat flour (or whole wheat pastry flour)
1/2 cup chopped nuts (optional)

- Preheat oven to 350 F
- Grease an 8x8 square pan
- Melt chocolate chips and coconut oil together. I do this by putting them in the microwave on the defrost setting for 30 second intervals, stirring in-between until liquid. Chocolate burns easily! Once melted, set aside to let it cool.
-  In a large bowl, beat together flax, water, sugar and vanilla. Add chocolate mixture and beat together. Carefully stir in flour and nuts. Mix until flour is fully incorporated, but do not overmix.
- Bake for 25 minutes or until toothpick inserted in centre comes out clean
- Cool completely before frosting

Lavender Frosting
1 tbsp dried culinary lavender (could also use lavender tea)
1/4 cup soy or almond milk
1/4 cup fairly firm margarine (such as Earth Balance) softened
2 1/2 - 3 cups of powdered sugar
Food colouring (blue and red/purple) as desired - Apparently you can use cabbage for purple colouring. I should try sometime.
Finely ground culinary lavender, to taste (optional)

Heat the milk until it is steaming (microwave for 30 seconds works well). Put lavender in the milk and steep for 10 minutes. The milk will turn a bit purple or greyish from the lavender. Mix margarine and 2 cups powdered sugar. Add lavender milk, straining out lavender through a sieve. Mix frosting, adding sugar as needed until desired consistency for spreading (it will firm up a bit too when chilled). If you want a particularly strong lavender flavour, you can also grind dried lavender flowers in a coffee grinder and mix these in with the frosting as well. I like mine strong so I do this. I also add food colouring at the end because the lavender sometimes turns the frosting a greyish purple off-white which I don't find appetizing! Chill frosting.

When the brownies are cooled, frost with lavender frosting. Cut into squares. For extra fudgey brownies, chill before serving.

Garlic Dill Salad Dressing/Dip

I just invented this dressing at lunch. It's delish. The measurements are approximate since I just winged it to taste. It comes out quite thick, so would work well for a dip as well.

Home made salad dressings are always WAY better than store bought, and take almost no time to whip up. This one makes about 1/2 cup.

1 tbsp honey/agave
2-3 tbsp tahini
1 tbsp avacado oil (avacado oil is expensive but delicious. You could also use olive or whatever you have).
2 tbsp apple cider vinegar
3 tsp dijon mustard
2-3 tsp nutritional yeast 
1 tsp dried dill
2 tsp dried parsley
1 clove fresh garlic
pinch of salt

Put all ingredients in a bullet blender (I used a mason jar attached to my Oster blender base - if you have an Oster - this works well). You can also chop the garlic finely and shake all contents in a jar until mixed.

I used this to dress a salad made of things I had in the house: spinach, romaine, onion sprouts, shredded carrot, chopped brown mushrooms, chopped celery, canned chick peas.