One Squash – Many, Many Meals

I was at work the other day I saw the most beautiful butternut squash! I had no plan for it, I just had to own it. Now its a few days later and the question remains… What to make into for dinner… Looking in my fridge – I found some old wanton wrappers I bought a few weeks ago at the Asian market, some second-hand ricotta cheese (my friend bought it, and hated it! Score for me!) and some wilty spinach. Hmmmm…. RAVIOLI!

After web searching a bunch of butternut squash ravioli recipe – I looked in my fridge again, pulled out even more stuff, and made up my own. Here it is:

Butternut Squash Ravioli

Ingredients:

• 1 cup mashed, roasted butternut squash
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1 pinch chili powder
• 1/2 cup ricotta cheese
• about 1/4 cup squash soup (or omit… though read below)
• 1 egg (yolk and white separated)
• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• about a 2/3 (14 ounce) package wonton wrappers
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 1 clove garlic, cut in quarters
• chopped fresh or 1/2 tsp of dried sage
• 1 cup baby spinach, chopped

Directions:

1. Mush together the butternut squash, salt, black pepper, chili powder, ricotta, soup, egg yolk, and Parmesan cheese. Mixing until the filling is well combined.
2. Get the wonton wrappers, the egg white and a cutting board. Put a wrapper on the cutting board, wet your finger with the egg white, and run it all along the outer edge of the wonton skin to moisten. Place about 1 teaspoon of filling in the center of the wonton. Then fold the wonton in half, matching up the tips, and press the edges to seal. Do over and over again until you run out of something (if it’s the egg white, use water instead).
3. When all the ravioli are made, put a pot of water on to boil, then put a frying pan over medium heat, with the butter and garlic. Add the sage to the pan just as the butter completely melts. As the butter turns golden add the spinach, as soon as it wilts take the pan off the heat.
4. Drop the raviolis into the boiling water, a few at a time, and cook until they float to the top, then plus a minute, about 3 minutes total. Drain the raviolis, then put them in the pan with the butter. Turn the heat up to medium-high, and sauté the raviolis for about a minute a side.  
5. Put everything on a plate and swoon at your great use of fridge contents!

Substitutions: use any kind of squash (if using spaghetti squash, just blend it first). Use mascarpone or greek yogurt instead of ricotta. Omit the egg if necessary and use water to seal the wrappers. Use any (or no) greens at the end. If the filling seems a little dry, and you don’t have soup, try a dash of cinnamon (a VERY SMALL AMOUNT) and a splash of milk. 

Ok... the downside (for me anyways) – this recipe makes like 26 ravioli AND only used half the squash… I personally can only eat 8 ravioli at a time – so I froze the rest. Just put all the fresh leftovers (uncooked) in one layer, on a pan lined with parchment paper, and freeze. Once frozen solid, move them to an airtight bag. To re-cook, just take out the number you want an half hour or so before dinner, let them thaw, then cook as above, plus maybe a minute.

I’ll figure out what to do with the leftover squash a little later… I’m thinking soup. OH! The soup addition! Its amazing! The Pacific soup I used is really thin and has a hint of cinnamon and sweetness. It was a delicious addition. I actually got the idea because the carton of soup suggested it (and it was a good way to use up just a little more of the carton). 

Until next time! Chow! Heheh.

Cherry-Strawberry Jellam

People are picky about their cherries. The other day someone came into the stand looking for cherries and we had some, but there weren’t many left. He took the whole box of them over to the sun and went though each and every cherry in the box. A little later he came over to me with a bag of perfect fruit. The rest however, he said needed to go into the garbage. He was right. He took every last perfect cherry and the leftovers were all pretty sad – some had super smooshy tops while others had an under-developed twin sticking off the stem. At the end of the day, no one took them – so of course, instead of throwing them away, I just had to take them home. That same day there was also 2/3 of a basket of organic strawberries that had been passed over all day. They had similar symptoms of over-ripeness.

So, what do you do with squishy, super-sweet, over-ripe fruit? It was obvious to me! Make jam! I had never made freezer jam, but I hear about it often. Freezer jam is easier to make than regular processed jam, and requires less fruit and less sugar. This was a good option for me, because I was tired and I figured there was only about a pound of fruit to use.

Here’s all I did – washed all the fruit, and discarded the really weird ones. For the strawberries, I hulled them, cut off the squishy parts, then cut the rest of the fruit in quarters. For the cherries, I de-stemmed them, pulled off any weird twins, cut off the super-over ripe part, then just pushed out the pit. Then it all went straight into the blender! The recipe called for two full cups of fruit… I was a little bit short, so I threw in a ¼ cup of blueberries I had laying around, and blended the mixture up again.

The recipe that follows, is straight from the instructions that come in the regular Sure-Jell Fruit Pectin box:

Strawberry Freezer Jam 

• 2 cups crushed strawberries (buy 1 qt. fully ripe strawberries) 
• 4 cups sugar, measured into separate bowl 
• 3/4 cup water 
• 1 pkg. SURE-JELL Fruit Pectin 

Directions:

1. Rinse 5 (1-cup) plastic containers and lids with boiling water. Dry thoroughly. Discard stems. Crush strawberries thoroughly, 1 cup at a time. Measure exactly 2 cups prepared fruit into large bowl. Stir in sugar. Let stand 10 min., stirring occasionally.
2. Mix water and pectin in small saucepan. Bring to boil on high heat, stirring constantly. Continue boiling and stirring 1 min. Add to fruit mixture; stir 3 min. or until most the sugar is dissolved. (A few sugar crystals may remain.) Fill containers immediately to within 1/2 inch of tops. Wipe off top edges of containers; immediately cover with lids.
3. Let stand at room temperature 24 hours. Jam is now ready to use. Store in refrigerator up to 3 weeks or in freezer up to 1 year. (If frozen, thaw in refrigerator before using.)
4. Substitutions: The cherry freezer jam recipe called for exactly the same quantities as the strawberry one, so I felt confident substituting half cherries. Also, I wasn’t preserving it for the long term, so chemistry wasn’t 100% important.

Also, what I make is Jellam. I hate big chunks of fruit in my jam. It makes it hard to spread on toast, it has a weird mouth feel, and the chunks often float to the top of the jar… I don’t know, I just don’t like it. But, I also, don’t love jelly. It takes longer to make, its super thin, I don’t think it’s as flavorful. So, I just blend my fruit, to just about smooth. Kind of a half way between a jelly and a jam – a Jellam!

This recipe would work for those leftover strawberries and cherries in your fridge, that didn't get eaten at their peak and their just not that appealing to pop in your mouth as a snack. This jellam ended up being sweet concoction of fresh fruit goodness.

Welcome!

Cooking New Life into Old Food.

This may sound like an odd concept – old food isn’t exactly something people want to do much with, other than throw away, of course. But just because something is old, bruised, partially bad, leftover or a little stale, doesn’t mean it isn’t wonderfully (and often surprisingly) useful! The goal of this blog is exactly as its title states – to cook new life into old food – that is, to take food items that may be past their prime, ugly, in surplus, or seemingly worthless, and turn them into something valuable and/or delicious. 

I realized the potential of imperfect food when I got a job in a market about a year ago. We had a small produce section – it was always overstocked and under-bought. Each day, it was my job to go through the section and get the ‘ugly’ produce off the shelves. This would be a potato with too many eyes growing on it, an apple that had a bruise on one side or a bunch of green onions that the tops were getting slimy. You know, the produce that no person – in a grocery store – would want to pay full price for (which, by the way I TOTALLY understand). The first day, I did what the owners had always done – tossed it all in the garbage. The second day, I asked if I could take some of it home. The answer was “Sure.” as it was already loss in the stores eye. 

I’ve since moved away from that market, and moved right into another. This one is a farm stand, with an organic, farmers market flare. Organic, farm fresh flare means short shelf life, which means I have a fridge full of old, imperfect produce again. YAY!

The last thing, that brought me to this point in my life, is that I usually cook just for me. I have a husband, but he rarely eats at home because of his job, and we don’t have any kids. This means, when I buy a head of kale – I have to be 100% committed to kale for the week, or it starts to go bad because I just can’t finish it. So, I’ve had to get creative. I’ve had to find a way to work around the parts of things that have gone bad or have had to find a way to preserve the items BEFORE they go or find a way to use them in a way that won’t TASTE like them. It’s turned into a bit of a challenge. A challenge that I’ve embraced and now want to pass onto others: Don’t throw it away! Figure out what you can do with it!

Note: This is not a dumpster diving, trash to table blog. I won’t give any advice or recipe that could be harmful or cause illness. Take these posts as points of reference, not gospel. Do only what you are comfortable doing. However, remember, I wrote the blog the next day most likely, and I was still alive and well enough to write about it! I want to do my part change the crazy wasteful mindset us here in the USA tend to have. If I can save just one spotted apple or brown banana from going in the trash, well then, I’ve done my job.