Fresh Vegan Rainbow Pasta Dough with Butternut Squash Stuffed Ravioli
My egg dying days are long in my past but I still had the urge create something that reminded me of the pastel beauty of Easter. This pasta dough is malleable and easily colored. You can make it ahead of time and it will keep well in the fridge covered for about 3 days. If you are not making my butternut squash filling just have a good rummage in the fridge and I’m sure you’ll come up with something wonderful.
Bring your empty cups
and we will have a feast.
The taste of the dough is not influenced overly much by the coloring agents. I started with my go to spinach dough and then went a bit crazy, experimenting with summer squash, yellow beet, red beet, carrot and blackberry. The only thing that really added flavour and fragrance as well as color were the blackberries.
Do you celebrate Frog Day?
My Aunt Helle and Uncle Torben loved holidays and the accompanying feasting and celebrations. My Aunt even had a pearl ring that was only to be worn when drinking champagne.
You go to my head
You linger like a haunting refrain
And I find you spinning round
In my brain
Like the bubbles in a glass of champagne
-Cole Porter
Since there are not enough established holidays in a year they created a ritual for creating new holidays. When one of them was feeling fest-ish, or when they had a craving for pickled red cabbage or roast goose with apples and prunes Uncle Torben would go to the book shelf and take down a book entitled The Calendar of Saints commemorating the lives and deaths of each saint organized by date.
The scam that Helle and Torben figured out was that all you had to do was pick a date, read aloud the saint’s name and accompanying story of their lives and often horrible deaths and you had created a holiday. Now you were honor bound to cook a feast day meal, uncork a bottle of wine and celebrate.
Pull up a chair. Take a taste. Come join us. Life is so endlessly delicious.
-Rith Reichl
They celebrated Saint Walt’s Day on December 5th. This was Walt Disney’s birthday. Often ending the evening with the nonpareil cinnamon and whipped cream layer cake that was Aunt Helle’s specialty.
Back to Frog Day. One day a frog showed up on their mossy front door stoop. They took it as a sign and cooked a celebratory meal, marked the day, and of course Frog day was celebrated for evermore on that date.
My husband and I have a few made up holidays as well. We even went out to lunch to celebrate my 1st 100 subscribers. I was so excited and blown away by people’s support that I was walking on air. We have marked that day and keep it as a holiday.
Check out my new Aquafaba page! For tips, tricks and to see all of my Aquafabulous recipes.
These ravioli filled with a citrusy squash mash are tender to the tooth, and sing a quiet lullaby of comfort.
- 6 ounces veggie of choice (or berry)
- 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour plus more for dusting
- 1 tsp salt
- 7 tbsp thick aquafaba plus more for sealing the ravioli
- 1 pound butternut squash
- 1/3 cup fresh orange juice
- 1/2 cup diced onion
- 2 tbsp fresh sage leaves minced
- salt to taste
- pepper to taste
- 2 tbsp non-dairy milk
- 1 tbsp high heat oil
- 1/2 cup marinara sauce
- 1/4 cup hazelnuts chopped
- 2 tbsp nutritional yeast
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If using a root vegetable or zucchini dice up your veggies. Steam your veggies in the microwave or on the stove top, until quite tender but still vividly colored. Drain and pat as dry as possible.
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Place your steamed veggies in your food processor with the aquafaba and pulse until the whole shebang is smooth like baby food.
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Now add both your flour and salt and pulse on and off in 3 second bursts until your dough comes together. Remove fro the Food processor and form into a soft ball.
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Lightly dust your cutting board with flour and knead the dough for 6-8 minutes until you have a pliant ball of dough. Put into a covered container until your filling is ready.
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Cube your squash and place in a microwave safe container with 2 tbsp water and loosely cover. Don't snap the lid on the container just place it on top. Microwave on high for about 10 minute until fork tender. Drain. Or steam in a pot on the stove top.
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Saute your onion in 1 tbsp oil in a large sauce pan over medium heat until light golden brown and fragrant. Place squash in the bowl of your Food Processor with the onion, orange juice, sage, salt, pepper and non dairy milk. Pulse until you have a fairly cohesive mash with a bit of texture.
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Roll out your ravioli dough on a lightly floured board. You will be using a rolling pin to create a large rectangle of thin (about 1/8) inch thick dough. Now using a small fluted cutter (mine was about 1 1/2 inch diameter) cut out equal rounds of dough. Place 1 1/2 tsp or so of dough into the center of each circle. Dip your finger in aquafaba and wet the edges of the dough circle.
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Gently press another circle over the filling and apply pressure all around the edge to seal it well.
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Bring a pot of lightly salted water to a low simmer and gently place in about 5-6 ravioli. Simmer them for 4-5 minutes and remove then GENTLY from the water. Finish the rest of your ravioli in batches.
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Heat a medium pan and toast your chopped hazelnuts until golden and toasty being very careful not to burn them. Remove them from pan. Add your marinara and heat through. Gently place your cooked ravioli in with the sauce and toss to coat.
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Scoop into bowls and top each bowl of ravioli with chopped hazelnuts and a sprinkle of nutritional yeast.
Pins
Brilliant and beautiful, Johanne. I love your experiments!
Thank you Radhika, there is a childlike glee when you roll up your sleeves and play with food.
Beautiful compositions! The toasted hazelnuts are the The Dude’s rug. “It really ties the room together”. I love the gorgeously luminous moss colored glossy mushroom filled ravioli for Frog Day. The day when its easy to be green.
Oh the dude! From now on I will refer to some garnish as the rug.
You wrote “My egg dying days are long in my past…” Mine too. I was contemplating this with a twinge of sadness as we prepared for the visit our two little Danish nieces who were coming for Easter . Your niece and I tromped into the forest to cut some birch branches. With each step my feet broke through the crust and I sank thigh-deep into the snow, but your niece was just light enough to float on top of the crust. We collected our branches – black and rough and twiggy and without a trace of green – took them home and arranged them in a large jug full of water. Dipping into our box of Easter doodads, we decorated the branches with painted blown-out eggs from many years ago, along with paper decorations, tattered and faded now but still pretty. In three days tiny spots of green appeared on our Easter bush; in four days there were delicate light green leaves among the painted eggs and the bits of tissue paper. Spring had sprung in our home. Outside the buds on the mother trees, standing in deep snow, are still black and closed. Back inside, the cats managed over several nights to attack and destroy a number the old eggs dangling from the cut birch branches: they apparently still smell eggy enough to attract predators. So our supply of old painted blown-out eggs is dwindling. Can you think of a way to create eggless “eggs” that can be painted or otherwise decorated and then hung from our Easter bush? Perhaps something made with some kind of light-weight modeling material? Papier-mâché? You are a wizard at that kind of thing. Perhaps a post for next Easter?
What a magical tradition. Zoe will always remember those moments with her mom in the still of nature. I would love to find an alternative type of “egg” to paint. We’ll have to look into that. It needs to be light weight and paintable. I’m pretty sure we can make something work.
What a shame that some precious Easter treasures were shattered by those dumb cats. That stinks. Hanne
thank you for your wonderful recipes, remembrances, stories and quotes. in the ravioli recipe are you meaning 6oz volume or is that in weight?
You are so welcome. Thank you for stopping by. I meant 6 ounces by weight about 1/2 cup of puree.
I will never, in my whole life, forget the trips we took to Venda Ravioli. My tiny hot hand clutched in your petite, but much bigger, paw walking down Atwells. Ravioli is small pasta filled with cheese. And after you eat it, you will be a small human filled with pasta that is filled with cheese. Ravioli-seption.
I’m glad because if you forget all is lost. Even in heat waves where appetites were lost in the haze you Aylam and I could polish off a pound of ravioli, cause it just slipped down, no need to chew.
Good morning,
I would like to know if you use only butternut squash for the filing of your ravioli since the pasta is of different colors
Merci
Maria
Good morning Maria,
I use many different fillings but gave only one recipe. I’d love to know your favorite fillings. I was thinking of posting my recipe for using the blackberry colored pasta dough in a dessert. with a chocolate filling.