I've been perusing the web for good recipes in which I can use eggs. We get at least one egg from a chicken each day, some days we get two eggs. Rarely does one hen skip two days, giving us a day off. So I've made fresh pasta with the eggs before, with delicious results. Last week I used up four eggs in some banana bread. Today I counted eleven eggs in our carton and thought some action was required. The recipes I found online are mostly custards, cakes, quiches, frittatas, and breakfast egg dishes. So I resorted to making a batch of pasta (with a twist) and turning it into ravioli. The twist was some lemon zest added to the pasta dough.
I had to decide on the filling so I looked around at what I had, and thought about what would taste nice with lemon, and came up with the idea for a filling composed of some cooked chicken (left over from roasted chicken), roasted pumpkin (I've had the pumpkin on display for months), and some garlic greens, parsley, and chard – all from the garden. I added a small pile of parmesan shavings, some more lemon zest, and two eggs to help with adhesion, and went to work making the ravioli.
When I cut open the pumpkin, to scoop out the seeds before roasting it in the oven, I found some of the seeds had sprouted and grown roots inside the pumpkin. It was a remarkable sight, so I took some photos. I also carefully extracted a couple of the rooted plants and put them in pots.
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| A tiny garden growing inside the pumpkin. |
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| One of the sprouted seeds I planted |
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| The rest of the scooped out interior, with a jumble of sprouted and unsprouted seeds |
The experimental ravioli filling ended up being absolutely edible, but rather lemony. I was going to serve it with some reheated tomato-based sauce I had in the freezer (left over from a batch of lasagna I'd made a while back). When we tasted the sample ravioli I cooked, it seemed like it would be better with an alfredo sauce. Well I nixed that idea on account of my cholesterol and my waistline, plus it would have meant a trip to the store. So we had it with the tomato sauce.
I froze two trays of ravioli though, so maybe we'll try the alfredo sauce when we cook the next batch. I'll have to invite company though, so I can justify buying the heavy cream.
