Eat your veggies

Dec 6, 2003

We get an Urban Organic delivery each week. Neither of us buy into the organic food cult but this particular service pushes a number of buttons:

variety - We were stuck in a rut, buying the same foods and making the same meals. Maria wanted us to eat more vegetables. Now we open the box and figure out what to make. They include a newsletter with recipes in the box but we usually find our own.

automatic - We know that every Tuesday there will be a box of fresh vegetables and fruits waiting for us.

home delivery - Until Fresh Direct realizes that Manhattan doesn’t stop at 125th street, this is the best option.

quality - We’ve yet to receive produce that wasn’t in very good condition which makes you wonder why so often the produce at the other groceries (excepting Fairway) looks like it was trampled.

value - You get a lot of produce for $33 and it’s a healthy challenge to eat all the veggies.

So we got this squash in the last box. It was big. Maria doesn’t like the traditional preparations of squash all that much. Over the past few weeks I roasted and ate a couple of small ones when she was out and we made a mash from one and used one in a pilaf but this one was too big for that. What to do with it? Maria came up with an answer: Ravioli. Okay, I’m game.

We split, seeded and quartered it and roasted it covered with a little water in the pan. Once it cooled we scooped the flesh into a bowl and stirred in 8 oz. of Ricotta, (a lot) of salt, some fresh ground nutmeg and a little black pepper. Despite the cheery example of Mario Batali on the Food Network, making pasta, especially without a machine, is the private domain of Italian grandmothers. Neither of us have had someone transgress the omerta of turning semolina into pasta not paste, so we substituted gyoza wrappers. We put a scant tablespoon of filling in the center and then a dab of water on the edge and fold and crimp the dumpling. After making forty we put the remaining filling into a freezer bag for later use in a lasagna.