The kids pulled beets from my mom's garden when we were visiting last week. We steamed up a few too many for dinner two nights ago and needed a creative plan to use up the leftovers. On a whim the kids and I transformed them into technicolor pink ravioli. Here's how:
Puree two cups of chopped beets with 2 eggs in food processor or blender.
Placed 2 1/2 C flour mixed with 1 tsp salt.
Make a well in the center of the flour and add beet mixture. Stir and knead (adding extra flour as needed) until well combined. Continue adding flour until a stiff (read: not sticky) dough is achieved. Cover with a damp towel and allow to rest for 1/2 hour. (My kids have an adorable habit of singing lullabies to "resting" dough. *Love*)
While the dough is resting mix up your filling. We used caramelized onions (1/2 C), goat cheese (1/3 C), ricotta (1/2 C), a pinch of salt and an egg. Chopped roasted walnuts would have been a lovely addition but we were out.
Roll out dough on a well floured board. Cut into 2" squares. Into each square carefully place a tablespoon of filling in the center. Moisten the sides with water. Place a second noodle square on top and press edges to seal.
Cook in rapidly boiling salted water for four minutes per noodle. I boil them in batches as we get them ready and then lightly oil them after transferring to a serving bowl to prevent sticking.
Like most of my finished food shots, the cooked noodles didn't photograph well. But trust me that they were delicious and beautiful. We served it with garlic infused olive oil and garden fresh veggies. There were no leftovers. Improvise with any pureed, steamed, drained vegetable. Enjoy!
Fantastic idea – thanks! I’m going to pull our beets up today. 🙂
WowW Wow! Wow! That is the best sounding ravioli I’ve ever heard of! I’ve never made my own pasta…but I might have to try! Thanks for sharing!
that looks truly incredibly fabulous.
I just had a flashback to pre-kid, early-in-my-marriage days when we used to make homemade ravioli… ALWAYS good. I’m totally hungry now.
Love your enthusiasm, Cassandra! They were so good. And homemade pasta is ridiculously easy. Give it a try!
~ Rachel
How creative, and what gorgeous dough! My toddler is kind of obsessed with beets right now, so I’ll definitely have to keep this recipe on file. We just planted a fall crop of beets to enjoy in a month and a half or so.
I’m not sure my original comment showed up – thanks for the creative idea, the dough is gorgeous. My toddler is obsessed with beets right now and we just planted a fall crop. I’ll keep this recipe bookmarked.
Oh this is such a fantastic idea! My baby eats a lot of beets but I always buy them in bunches too large for him to eat all at once. I usually just add them to our salads, but this is a great idea!
Hey Rachel!
It’s Nina. I tried this recipe for dinner last night and it was DELICIOUS! I added the walnuts as well as red pepper, mushrooms, and garlic… I have a hard time only using a few veggies in a meal. Anyhow, I was wondering what kind of flour you used. I started with W.W. Pastry flour and once I ran out of that moved on to W.W. bread flour and then my roommate, who is a baker, told me to try all purpose flour. It was pretty sticky even after adding an additional 2 cups or so. I’d like to make this again so I was hoping you could add some insight.
Hope Sage’s birthday was a blast!
Nina,
So glad you enjoyed them! I used white spelt flour, but the texture will vary so much depending on the moisture of your beets and the size of your eggs. Just keep adding until it is irrationally stiff.
xo Rachel
Totally tried it with stinging nettles. Thanks. It was totally awesome. So awesome, I even had to blog about it, too.
So glad! Nettles rule.