Sunday, October 28, 2007

Deconstructed Squash Ravioli


One of the things I love about this time of year is roasted acorn squash. It's so simple to cook and tastes so rich and decadent when it's done. The fact that with all that mellow richness, it's actually good for you is just a bonus!

The only problem is - with just two of us, it can take awhile to eat our way through one. And with the offerings from our CSA lately, these things are piling up!

Fortunately, we have a standing date on Wednesday nights to have dinner with our friend Fiona.

As an aside, I heartily endorse the standing date for busy people who don't want their social life to fall by the wayside. Make it once-a-week, or once-a-month and promise each other that only really big things will be allowed to get in the way.

This makes it harder to cancel the date than it would be to make plans from scratch, thus ensuring that you actually see your friends once in awhile.

Last Wednesday night, Alan made Calde Verde, to make use of the kale. So I volunteered to do the appetizer.

I softened some minced garlic and a chopped shallot in a mixture of butter and olive-oil. Scraped the roasted squash out of its shell. When the garlic and shallot were cooked through, I added the squash to the pan with some salt and pepper to taste.

I boiled up some papardelle noodles. I counted on two noodles each for the appetizers, plus a bit left over for lunch later in the week.

Once they were cooked and the squash mixture heated through, it was time to plate.

One end of a noodle went down on a plate, with a dollop of squash on top. The noodle was folded back on itself and another dollop added and so on until both noodles had been folded and dollopped on the plate. A final bit of squash on top, to show what we were having.

For added flavour, I put three dots of really good quality balsamic vinegar round the plate and added a good grinding of black pepper over all of it.

Quick, easy, and yummy!

3 comments:

Unknown said...
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Unknown said...

Your good ideas cover ALL areas of life. Thank you - practical AND yummy! I've been talking for months of starting a book club with a friend...and you've given me the push to make it happen! I think I know what we'll eat at our first meeting.

Barb McMahon and Alan Mailloux said...

Sounds like my kind of book club!