Jan 29, 2012

Cooking Ahead - Stuffed Ravioli and Home Made Bread



Saturday......Well today was definitely a tiring day.
I started off the morning with a great find at my local thrift store, 
a nice Humidifier for $3
(now all I have to do is sanitize and disinfect it).
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My focus for today is to do some cooking ahead recipes to
make my week easier.
Ha ha on me.
I decided to start off with Home made Ravioli.,
because the Cooking Channel made it look so easy. 
The next project on my list was to conquer  Home made Banana zucchini bread.


First the Ravioli.
The dough was actually fun and easy to make.
The whole rolling out the ravioli by hand was another thing entirely.
2-3 hours later , the ravioli was finished. It turned out very good.
Next time I will probably cook some Italian sausage and add it to the stuffing mixture.
I will also be making an Alfredo sauce instead of tomato based sauce.

Here is the stuffing Recipe I made: 1 Bar Marscapone cheese ( I may substitute cream cheese next time because I like the tartness of cream cheese) 1 small container ricotta cheese, 1/2 bag cooked frozen Broccoli, 2 clove garlic, 1 1/2 tsp pepper. 11/2 tsp salt, 1/2 cup shredded Parmesan cheese. 1 lb cooked  Italian sausage .Half of this mixture stuffed 40-45 large ravioli.

Pros -   I made enough ravioli for 2 meals. I have extra stuffing to stuff shells in the month ahead. I made  small  home made noodles for another meal and I have 3 balls of dough left for the week to use as my heart desires.
I am not sure if I can freeze the noodles or dough, I will be googling that.
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Cons-  I spent almost the entire day in the kitchen, My kitchen looked like flour exploded everywhere and I am a mess as we speak. It was not one of those "I'm so cute cooking days."
I am exhausted. Not exactly how I wanted to spend my Saturday.
Second, The Bread
My Banana Zucchini bread turned out really good.
( I should rename it to Banana Juice Fast Pulp Bread). 
Most of my juices were made from cucumber, collards, spinach, carrots, apples, squash and other veggies.
Pretty amazing to have all that in one bread. 
I adapted a recipe I found on the Internet.
My goal was to use the pulp I saved from the juice fast I did a couple months ago.
This is my second round at attempting a bread using the pulp. 
Yep, I was praying ... Please God let this turn out good.
Finally! Delicious!!
It is moist, great flavor and tastes sooo good.
This bread has some serious nutritional value! 


 


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