Mushroom and Spinach Ravioli

Last night I tried my hand at making ravioli for the first time... it is hard.  Rolling the dough definitely becomes the worst part after the first thirty minutes, it's just so... elastic.  And refuses to roll out.  Stretch, dang you!  My arms are still sore from all the rolling.

Recipe at Allrecipes.com: Mushroom and Spinach Ravioli

Here's our ingredients, lined up for a mugshot.

This is my first time making homemade noodles, so I'll admit I was a little apprehensive!  It's pretty straightforward, though.  Measure your flour and salt, mix your egg (and any other wet ingredients), then combine and turn out onto a floured pastry cloth.  Then knead.  And knead.  And knead.  And knead.  

And knead some more.

Until you get something along the lines of this, a smooth ball of dough.  The instructions say to wrap it up and let it rest, so I moved on to making the filling, because I'm an impatient kind of person like that.

Mushrooms, onions and garlic all sauteing together nicely.  This made the house smell delicious, by the way.

After the mushroom mixture cooked, I added in the spinach, cream cheese and parmesan.  I didn't have any shredded mozzarella so we just did cream cheese, mushroom, spinach and parmesan cheese ravioli...shhh don't tell my husband.  Oh wait, he reads this.  Oh well.  Sorry honey!

When I took this picture I had just rolled out my dough ball and was thinking "huh, this is actually pretty fun".  Silly me, I didn't realize that I would have to roll this dough out several times and each time it would become more and more resistant to my rolling attempts, much like a certain stubborn dog.  I cut out circles using a drinking glass, then rolled those out again.  There's a lot of rolling involved in this recipe.

After rolling out the circles, I plopped a tablespoon of filling in the center.  Doesn't that look pretty?

I love these photos, because they scream quintessential ravioli pictures to me.  The puffy pillows, the decorative edges...you can't see the person behind the camera going crazy trying to roll out the dough (which is becoming increasingly aggressive each time I use it).

Ravioli pile!  After I got tired and stopped I boiled  what I had for a few minutes and to my immense surprise, none of them split open.  Victory!

I served ours with marinara sauce, not the chive butter sauce - I have to stick with the classics. (Yes, there is spaghetti in there as well.  We had some leftover spaghetti I had to find a use for!) I was surprised at how full I felt after eating 3-4 of these - they're actually really filling.  Overall it was really really good.    Bonus points: vegetarian!  The recipe was right, I totally didn't miss the meat.  Would I make it again?  Probably not, unless I have a ton of energy that day.  Or get a pasta roller.

Portobello Burgers!

So last night I tried making Portobello Mushroom burgers.  This is totally a first for us (our only other foray into vegetarian meals has been eggplant parmesan); multiple sources confirmed the mushroom has the consistency of hamburger and "even if you eat meat you won't miss it in this burger".  We'll see σ___σ (this is my skeptical face)

Portobello Mushroom Burgers from Allrecipes.com

 Here are the mushroom caps and all our marinade ingredients!  I washed the mushrooms and removed the gills because those creep me out.  Mushrooms with gills.  Like fish.  Ew. 

Since I was only making 2 burgers instead of 4, I cut the marinade down by half as well.  I threw soy sauce and worcestershire in there along with onion powder just because I could.  So there.

Here is a mushroom, happily sitting in its marinade.  I let them sit for about 20 minutes while I ran around doing other things (laundry, cleaning).  I love recipes that I can forget about - it's why I'm such great friends with my slow cooker.

Since I don't have a grill (shame) I ended up cooking these guys on the stove.  I'm happy to report that they shrink as they cook so what starts out as a giant mushroom-zilla ends up being a rather manageable cap in the end.  Sidenote: this recipe makes your house smell delicious.  Seriously.  My mouth was watering before the food was even done.

I also decided hey, why not grilled onions? and tossed those in with the provolone-covered patties.  Mmmm.  So good.  They smelled like the ridiculously huge burgers you can get at the fair, that are like the size of your head.  I love those burgers.

Viola - the finished product!  I toasted the onion buns, whipped up an aioli sauce, sliced some pickles (seriously I have a thing for pickles... husband always jokes he'll never be able to tell if I'm pregnant because I already eat pickles with everything) and smothered it all in onions.  Is there any way this burger could not be delicious? (The answer is no.)  We ate these babies with a garden salad and baked potato, and I will totally be the first to admit I was surprisingly full coming away from a meal with no meat.


So this was pretty darned good, though as someone who was raised on beef burgers I have to say there is definitely a difference.  But at only 200~ calories you're going to have a hard time going wrong with this.  I think next time (read: tonight.  We are a household that looooves leftovers) I'll cook them longer; I tried 40 minutes on the stove but the center was still very mushroomy (sides were really soft and easy to eat, though).

A Hearty Jaunt About Town, and Mushrooms

Because I've basically cocooned myself in my house for the past month and a half, I'd forgotten how much... fun... (fun is not the word I'm actually thinking of :( ) it is to drive in rush hour traffic.  At one point I watched the light turn green no fewer than three times before I was finally able to get through it (seriously, you guys?) I know we don't have the worst traffic (I think that award goes to Los Angeles or somewhere thereabouts... and in all fairness that is traffic I would not wish on my worst enemy), but dang.  That's insane.

In other news, we've been trying to eat better (smaller portions, more fruits/veggies) and I'm at the lowest weight I can remember (so at least 5 years).  Woohoo!  Since we cook in menus, I've been looking for vegetarian recipes that won't repulse us and sending running to the nearest hamburger, here are a few I've found that look promising:

Mushroom and Spinach Ravioli with Chive Butter Sauce
Portobello Mushroom Burgers
Stuffed Mushrooms

(Can you tell I was really on a mushroom kick here..)

I don't know about anyone else, but I always grew up thinking it wasn't dinner unless there was meat on the plate (my husband is the same).  So it's an interesting experience - we've tried doing eggplant parm with great success, but it was just one vegetarian meal out of 10 or so.  Also I deep fried it, so I'm pretty sure I totally negated the point of having vegetarian in the first place.  I'm really interested in those portobello burgers - people have told me you can't tell it's not meat but my brain is having a hell of a time reconciling that mushroom = meat.

Have you tried portobello burgers?  Are they good?  Am I crazy for trying this experiment?  I guess I'm figuring that if it doesn't work, I can just go back to eating chickens and cows and when people say "have you tried NOT eating meat?" I can go "Yes I have.  And it was terrible."