Vegan pumpkin ravioli

Another installment in the vegan Thanksgiving recipe series. Check out this hearty, filling dish, as well as several other recipes.

By PlentyMag.comFri, Nov 21 2008 at 4:42 PM EST

Photo: stu_spivack/Flickr

Vegan pumpkin ravioli

Ingredients

Filling

1 cup roasted pumpkin
2 tablespoons margarine or butter substitute or butter
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp cumin
dash of white or black pepper
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup ground cashews (or nuts of your choice)

Pasta (adapted from Fresh Pasta recipe in The Artful Vegan by Eric Tucker and Bruce Enloe, Dessert Recipes by Amy Pearce)

1 1/2 cups semolina flour
1/2 cup all purpose flour (or fine flour of your choice)
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp dried basil
1/2 cup water
1 tsp olive oil

Time Estimates

Prep time: 40 min

Cook time: 1 hr 20 min

Total time: 2 hrs

Notes

1. One pumpkin will yield way more than the one cup needed for this recipe, so you might want to plan on making a pie, soup, and/or the very easy and delicious Pumpkin Saag in Veganomicon the same week as your ravioli. Or quadruple this recipe; ravioli freezes well. Or just drain, bag and freeze your excess pumpkin.

2. Pumpkin seeds are easily and deliciously roasted. Save and rinse them, toss in oil , spread on a baking sheet and roast at 350 for about 30 minutes, stirring half way through.

3. You can make the ravioli ahead of time; they keep very well on parchment paper in tupperware in the fridge.

Instructions

Roast the pumpkin:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Slice your pumpkin in half horizontally and scrape out all the seeds and surrounding stringiness.
Place both pumpkin halves cut side down on a baking sheet at roast for about an hour or until the skin is very soft and brown in spots and the flesh is soft and easily separates.
Scrape flesh away from skins and let drain in colander.

Make the filling:

Melt margarine over medium heat in a large saucepan.
Add nutmeg, cinnamon, cumin, pepper, salt and ground cashews.
Stir in pumpkin and cook, stirring and mashing, until your mixture is fragrant and the consistency of stringy, creamy mashed potatoes.
Turn off heat and set aside.

Make the pasta:

Sift together flour, salt and basil. Add oil and water and knead until a stiff dough forms.
If you're going to be cooking your ravioli the same day that you're making them, you'll probably want to put a large pot of water up right about now so it'll be ready to go when you're done with assembly. Add a dash of salt and a dollop of olive oil to the water.
Turn out dough on a lightly floured surface and roll it as thin as you can with a rolling pin if you're like me and don't have a pasta maker (thought if you have a pasta maker, by all means use it). You may want to work with a small portion of the dough at a time.
Cut your dough into roughly matching squares; I like 2.5".
Put aprox 1 tablespoon of your pumpkin filling in the middle of a square, place another square on top, and pinch around the edges to seal. This is a great step on which to enlist the help of family and friends--it will go much quicker with more hands on the job. Place ravioli on parchment paper to prevent sticking.
Gently drop ravioli into a large pot of boiling water.
Cook for 15 minutes and carefully drain.
Serve with sauce of your choice. I braised some minced garlic, onion and fresh sage in a few tablespoons of olive oil and Earth Balance butter substitute.

Serves 4-6

Note on the recipes (all recipes my own unless otherwise noted):   A few of these recipes call for vegetable broth. If you join a CSA and feel overwhelmed keeping up with the new vegetables coming in -- or just tend to have veggies in your fridge 'til they get wilty and unappetizing -- homemade vegetable broth or stock is a great solution. Put any combination of vegetables in a pot, cover with water and let simmer for an hour or more. Then strain out the vegetables and freeze the broth; I especially recommend bagging it in one cup increments. This will keep for months, and whenever a recipe calls for vegetable broth you're all set.  

I also recommend saving the vegetables you strain out -- puree them in a food processor or blender and freeze them, as well. This makes a good base of soups and thick tomato or other sauces.  

Story by Nicole Solomon. This article originally appeared in Plenty in November 2008. The story was added to MNN.com in November 2009.

Also on MNN:

Almond butternut squash au gratin

Roasted potato beet salad with green beans and creamy balsamic vinaigrette

Garlicky kale and roasted turnips

Roasted sweet potatoes with scallion butter

Cauliflower and mushroom pot pie with black olive crust

Vegan Thanksgiving recipes

(all vegan recipes)