Pasta Italiana!

True story..... I, a lover of homemade things, have never made my own pasta sauce. I know, sacrilegious you say. So I decided it was about time to venture out and whip up some sauce and to top it all off I was inspired to try my own pasta as well.
I wanted to make a pasta that had filling, cheese filling in particular. Going with my motto, 'cheese makes everything better!'. With a little inspiration from the Husband, I went with a ricotta and spinach filling, in a ravioli noodle. I picked ravioli as it looked the least challenging of the filled pastas.
For the sauce, I used sun dried tomatoes as my inspiration and went with a tomato sauce.
I rustled myself up a 5 year old helper, who started dreaming away her pasta creations, and we got started!

Ingredients:

Pasta
2 cups flour
3 eggs
1 tsp. olive oil
1 tsp. water
pinch salt
( I read about a million recipes for pasta, some used oil and water, some did not. As it was my dough was a bit dry so I needed the water and I though the oil would help it to not stick)

Filling
2 cups fresh spinach
3 cloves garlic
3/4 cup ricotta cheese
s & p

Sauce
1/2 cup sun dried tomatoes
small onion
4 cloves garlic
2 tbsp olive oil
1 cup sliced mushrooms
1 cup grated zucchini
1 can diced tomatoes
1/2 cup tomato paste
1/4 cup fresh, chopped basil
s &p

First I made my filling for my pasta.
I put the spinach and garlic in some olive oil and cooked them till the spinach was soft, about 5 minutes. I then chopped up the spinach, let it cool a bit and mixed it with the ricotta. I put this in the fridge while I made my pasta.

I made the pasta dough in my mixer, using the dough hook. I mixed it about 3-4 minutes then took it out and hand kneaded for a minute or so. I then rolled it out. Looking back my dough was not thin enough. I found the rolling out to be very hard and the dough was quite stiff and springy. I think next time I will add a bit more water to it to see if that helps. But, I rolled it the best I could and my helper rolled hers out the best her little arms could too!
Perhaps what I need to invest in is the pasta roller attachment for my mixer? (My birthday IS less than 2 months away!)
By then my arms were pooped but I still managed to make a flat sheet, then  I cut it into two equal sized sheets. I dropped my filling in little piles on one of the sheets. Then I used water to moisten around the filling piles and placed my second sheet on top. I sealed up around each of the filling piles then cut between to make square ravioli's!
Also in retrospect, I would have used more filling! I found that it wasn't quite enough, and had the dough been thinner I think it would also have been easier to fill them..... next time!
I gave them a dusting of flour so they wouldnt stick to the plate and put them in the fridge for later.

Elysabeth's pasta creations!

Ok, now for the sauce.....

First I covered the sun dried tomatoes with boiling water to plump them up. As this was doing its thing I started cooking the veggies. I cooked the onion, garlic, mushrooms and zucchini up in some olive oil. Once these looked cooked I added the diced tomatoes and tomato paste. Then I drained the sun dried tomatoes, saving the water and adding it to the sauce. I chopped up the sun dried tomatoes and added them in. Last, I put in the basil and some s & p to taste. I found at first the sauce was pretty 'tomatoey', but I covered it up and let it simmer for over an hour and the taste just got better. The end result was pretty yummy and even better topped on our homemade pasta creations.

So pretty much I would say I'm a natural Italian.....Well, not really yet.... But I may fool some of you in the future! Pasta night at the Hillis' was a success, enjoyed by all except the littlest Hillis who enjoyed her brown rice, gluten free pasta, sorry Kayleigh!
Perhaps next time I will be as bold as to attempt the tortellini, hmmmm.... Stay tuned!

Hippie Rice Bowl

my inspiration...

broccolini..soooo good!

Last night I created a new meal for the fam and to my surprise it actually turned out great! My inspiration came from a recipe for lemon aioli, some sprouts and some broccolini (also called raab, raap or rapini).

Now side bar here but... I got all of these things from my new favourite service, SPUD. Anyone tried this? Its organic produce and also organic and natural groceries delivered to your door! As long as you spend $35.00 your delivery is free, and pretty much all of their products are cheaper or comparable to the grocery stores. I often get things I normally wouldn't because they may be on special or just a great deal. I also get a lot or Ms. Kayleighs gluten and dairy free products as well as some other great things too, highly recommended to all, and they deliver everywhere!
www.spud.ca

Okay, back to the rice bowl. The hippie rice bowl.... Called so because my Husband often like to refer to my food as 'hippie'. Funny thing was, this dinner wasn't given this title by him, I gave it this, as I was very surprised he didn't tease me at all, au contrare.... he said it was great!


Ingredients:

brown rice

chicken, I used thighs, but whatever you have will work

veggies
I used a mixture of raw and cooked veggies which gave the bowl a nice texture.
I sauteed up some onion, celery, carrot, peppers and my broccolini
Then I grated some zucchini, beet and had sprouts and avocado as well.
soy sauce

marinade for chicken
a whole lemon, olive oil, garlic, thyme, s & p.

homemade aioli
lemon juice, egg yolk, dijon, olive oil, s & p


The first thing I did was marinate my chicken. I took boneless, skinless chicken thighs, but you could use any chicken really.

I chopped up about 4 garlic cloves and about a tbsp of fresh thyme. Then grated a couple tsp of lemon zest and squeezed the whole lemon for its juice. I put these in my magic bullet (thanks Kati!!) with about half cup of olive oil. I blended this up and tossed it on the chicken to marinate for a few hours.

Then I made my aioli. This was my first time doing this, but as  lover of mayo I had to try it! And the lemon made it sound extra yummy....

I used my wire whisk on my kitchen aid mixer (thanks Mr. Hillis!) and first put in the egg yolk and a half tsp of dijon to mix together. I then drizzled the olive oil in the bowl while it was whisking away. I used about a half cup of oil before it looked the right consistency (thick!). I then added the juice from half a lemon.
Now I wasn't going to add garlic, but the aioli at this point tasted kind of bitter. So I chopped up three cloves and transferred the whole lot to my magic bullet. I added some salt and pepper to taste and blended it all up. In retrospect, this was the best idea! It turned even creamier and thick and was oh so tasty and garlicky!
I tossed this in the fridge with my marinating chicken.

I did all this earlier in the day, but when dinner time came around the first thing I did was to start cooking my rice and my chicken. With these cooking away I moved on to the veggies.

I chopped them all up and with about 10 minutes till the rice was ready I started to cook.
Carrots, onions and celery went in first for about 4 minutes, then peppers and broccolini. These only take a couple of minutes till cooked. I put a bit of soy sauce in at the end to give it a little flavour and called it done!

When everything was ready I started the fine art of layering the bowl. I seriously believe this makes the dinner!!

First hot rice in the bottom of the bowl.
Then raw veggies... zucchini, beet, sprouts. I kind of put these in little piles on one side of the rice.
Hot veggies.... peppers, broccolini, carrot, onion, celery. I put these on the other side of the rice.
Chicken... sliced up and put right on top of all veggies.
Aioli... drizzled all over hot chicken.
Avocado...sliced on top

My Husbands comment was "Did you seriously just make this up?" Which translates to a successful dinner. Also, my 5 year old at her whole bowl! And the 2 year old......Well, she was grumpy, so that doesn't count!

All in all a wonderful hippie dinner!