Cookie Dough Dip

Made with chick peas, so it's not even very bad for you!! Sushi and I made this on Wednesday and everyone loved it!!

Click here for the recipe. The girl who writes this blog has a lot of interesting variations on it that we want to try (brownie batter dip, snickerdoodle dip, pumpkin cookie dough dip...).

We served it with graham crackers, but it would probably be great with bananas or pretzels too.

Also, we only used about 3 heaping tablespoons of brown sugar and it was great.

Homemade Ravioli

This is the ravioli recipe we use to make raviolis, usually at Christmas and sometimes during the year. 

Filling:
about 3/4 lb ground pork
2 pounds ricotta cheese
8 to 12 ounces mozarella
6 to 8 eggs
1 cup Parmesan or Romano grated cheese (or other grated cheese)
salt and pepper

Mix up filling ingredients, using 6 to 8 eggs, depending on consistency of ricotta. The filling should be thick and juicy but hold together.

Dough:
Beat 2 eggs in a big bowl. Add 1½  cups cold water; beat up well. Add a little salt and pepper. Then add enough flour to make a soft and pliable dough, about 5 to 6 cups of flour. Knead dough on board.

Use small amounts to roll out. (I like using the silicone mat, rolls out very nicely. Use a fair amount of flour on your rolling pin and mat so it doesn't stick.) Drop filling in teasponfuls on half of dough, then fold over and cut with small juice glass. Place on cookie sheet that is sprinkled with cornmeal or farina.

Cook in salted water with a little oil for about 10 to 15 minutes.

Roasted Butternut Squash and Bananas

I bought a pound of pre-cut butternut squash this week planning to use it in soup, but I didn't end up having the rest of the ingredients. I didn't really know what to do with the squash so I ended up improvising a little and came up with this!

Ingredients:

-butternut squash, in chunks

-2-3 bananas (depends on how much squash you want to make)

-2 Tbs olive oil

-cinnamon

-nutmeg

-allspice

Preheat the oven to 350. Toss the squash with the olive oil and spices and arrange on a jellyroll pan. Fill in the gaps on the pan with banana slices and bake in the oven for 35 minutes.

It came out really well! Roasted bananas taste like banana bread and help sweeten the squash. If I'd had canola or vegetable oil I'd probably have used that instead of olive oil, but I don't think it makes a huge difference.