So today I added wonton wrappers to the lineup of hot Italian sausage already in the freezer for whatever it fits with, and whole milk plain yogurt, and a supply of eggs. I probably only need one egg, but it looked nice to display them all.
I've made my own pasta for ravioli, and it was good, but not enough to justify that much work at least not right now, before I've recovered from the Rustic Apple Tart. So the wonton wrappers are a great substitute. You use them for dumplings of various sorts, but for ravioli I find them good, too. I do like cooking the sort of things you plunge into boiling water and wait till they emerge at the top.
And since it's a while since I made yogurt cheese, which I use in many places where cream or cream cheese or ricotta is listed, since I like it better, I set some up to go. Here's the whole container full, turned out into a cheesecloth-lined strainer set on a bowl to catch the whey. This is whole milk, since I want that consistency for the ravioli particularly, but I've made it with nonfat, too, and it's fine but not as coherent as the whole milk version.
And here it's in the fridge till tomorrow, with a glass lid on, to drain slowly, to set up a nice cheese consistency ready to use.
Kept the original container for the whey which will feature in some future soup.
This is all very good, because it means I have to wait till tomorrow for the cheese to be ready for the ravioli caper, fine by me, I can read my mystery story, an Emma Lathen set in the Baltic, instead of pounding about in the kitchen. And have a cup of tea, too. Such larks.
Tomorrow I'll sizzle the Italian sausage, beat in the eggs and some cheese and various spices for the filling and go from there. I'll probably freeze a bunch of them, since you can't make just a couple of ravioli. And they can go with various sauces, but I think I'll make a red sauce this time.
Oh, and a postscript on the Rustic Apple Tart -- Handsome Son stopped in for a cup of tea and a healthy hunk of the tart. I whined at great length about the complications, multiple tools, and various other things and whether it was worth it really.
He listened patiently, so tactful, don't know where he gets it from, certainly not from his parents, and said, well, it was worth it, how soon will you make it again? Oh. So I undertook to do it for some future special occasion.
Speaking of which, Carol G., a friend in stitching and a blogista, mentioned a great cookbook she, herself a seriously good cook, swears by, The Pleasure of Cooking for One. So I've put it on request at the libe, and will no doubt have some adventures with it for your future reading pleasure.
Looking forward to your review of that cookbook, Liz! And what a great idea about wonton wrappers. I too have made pasta and egg noodles from scratch, but not in donkey's years. And with no comfortable place to roll out dough it is not something I am likely to start doing again anytime soon. I'll remember your wonton method and maybe try it as a Winter Adventure. Speaking of rolling out dough, though - I do LOVE food that brings it's own handle, like turnovers and pasties and empanadas, so I ought to look into the options for pre-made frozen sheets of dough, I suppose. Any advice there?
ReplyDeleteIve only used frozen dough one time, and that was that flaky stuff. But all in all, the crust for the Rustic Apple Tart, basically the same thing, was no harder to wrestle with than buying the frozen stuff. Ive heard of people buying those biscuits dough items where you bang the container on the counter to open it, and they kind of unfold, but haven't used them, though I bet they'd make a nice pasty or sausage roll type of food. Making pastry doesn't take as much rolling out space as pasta, which seems to me to need an entire kitchen table, one of which I don't have.
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