Garden - Gloriousgal Studio

Posted on May 30, 2011 by Gloria

Spinach Wonton Ravioli 2 Ways

I’m a bit behind, so I am going to make two post one.

So Still using the fresh spinach from my garden, I decided to do ravioli, but using the square asian wonton wraps. The filling and the wraps are the same for both dishes.

So for the filling. In a food Processor because it is easier: 1 pound of ricotta, 1/2 onion, sliced, 4 chucks of fontina cheese (the amount of cheese is up to the individual), 8 large spinach leaves that I quick steamed in water, 2 tablespoons of minced garlic and salt and pepper to taste.

Blend until smooth then add one jumbo egg.

Blend in the egg and then remove mix from processor to a bowl or container. Then mix in with a spoon some mozzeralla cheese.

Now time to fill the wontons:
So any brand of wonton wraps is fine, a small bowl of water is needed, a plate and a spoon.

On a plate or dry surface, lay out one wrap and place a teaspoon or so of ricotta mixture in the middle of the wrap.

With a finger, dip in water and place around top edge of wrap

Fold over and press edges so that they seal.

Be careful not to add to much filling or the wonton will not close properly.

Spinach Wonton Ravioli with Mushroom and Green Onion Cream Sauce
Now For the first Wonton Raviloi, Bring a pot of water to a rapid boil.

While waiting on that, in a frying pan, add 1 tablespoon of butter and 2 or 3 tablespoons of olive oil. Let that get hot. (My serving was for one, so ajust the amount depending on how many you are cooking for) slice 2 large white mushrooms, and one stalk to green onion. Add that to the pan along with 1 tablespoon of minced garlic.

Cook until mushroom are tender and brown

Add about 1/2 cup of heavy cream

Let the cream cook down and pick up the brown goodies from the pan, add salt and black pepper to taste.

Once your water is boiling, drop in a few ravioli, but be gentle. They only take a minute for the wonton to cook and the filling to heat through. Use a spoon and gently take out the ravioli, put them in a bowl and add sauce. Enjoy

Fried Wonton Ravioli with a Rustic Spicy Tomato, Garlic and Asparagus Sauce.

Alright so the wontons are all ready, so let’s work on the sauce first.
So you need, a can of Tomato Puree (There is nothing added to it, just tomatoes) 1 Shallot, 1 Head of Elephant Garlic, 3 Thick Slices of Prosciutto, Aparagus, Fontina Cheese, Half of a dried red chili (really a quarter of a dried chili, because it packs a punch), Olive oil (I used my special blend), Salt and Pepper

Slice the Shallot and dice the elephant garlic big

Dice up the prosciutto and add to a frying pan, and cook for about 1 to 2 minutes

Add the Shallot and Garlic

Add about 1 tablespoon of olive oil and salt and pepper to taste and let the garlic and shallot soften

Cut Asparagus in to piece

Add to pan with 2 tablespoon of olive oil

Once the aparagus has cooked Add 1/2 cup of puree tomato and crush the red chili and add (serving for 1 or 2, and if you don’t like spicy, do not add the chili) and let cook down

Once the sauce has cooked for about 5 minutes, add some parsley (dried or fresh)

Now time to fry the Wonton Ravioli. I used a Wok, but a small frying pan will work. Add oil and let heat up, I use Canola oil.

Once the oil is hot, drop in wontons. Again they brown really fast so keep a close eye on them.

Once the Ravioli are fried, add them to a bowl

Add sauce and grate cheese on top.

I loved the crunchy ends to the wonton mixed with the rustic tomato sauce and the creamy spinach filling. This one was my favorite. So there you have my Spinach Wonton Ravioli 2 ways, Enjoy.

Posted on May 23, 2011 by Gloria

Spinach and Asparagus Pizza

Yesterday, I blogged about my home garden and how last week I harvested some of the spinach. I cut off the big leaves and left the babies.

So rinse the spinach and make sure no bugs or dirt are on them.

Sliced one large white mushroom, about a few petite asparagus and slice some onion.

I used one of the premade pizza crust for this (a small personal size).
First I pre-heated my oven to 400 F. I placed the pizza crust on a cookie sheet and spread some olive oil that I flavored a few weeks ago (in a olive oil bottle I dice fresh garlic and added to bottle along with dried parsely, then add oil and let sit for a few day before using. The longer it sits the more garlic and parsely flavor the oil will have) on it.

After the oil, spread mince garlic around the crust. Then add a layer of mushrooms, onion and asparagus.

Sprinkle a little bit of coarse kosher salt, then add shredded mozzeralla cheese. On top of the cheese, I added spinach from my garden, more mushrooms, onion and asparagus. Sprinkle a bit more salt on top of the veggies. The last step is to slice some Fontina cheese and add it to the top then bake until cheese is melted.

When the pizza is done, cut with a pizza cutter and enjoy. It is funny how much different fresh spinach from my garden taste from what I buy in the store. Very Yummy.

Posted on May 22, 2011 by Gloria

Small Home Veggie Garden

So this particular blog posting is to give some substance to my future post. I will be mentioning my garden quite often, so I thought I should show my efforts in bringing it along.

I have been in my house for almost a year (a year in late August 2011) and I had plans on making a vegetable garden as soon as I moved in, but that was very unrealistic. However, during the fall and winter, I did my research on veggie gardening and such. In the end, I decided to do a raised garden in the front of my house because the back of my house doesn’t get Sun because of large pine trees and the side of my house only gets about 3 hours of Sun a day because of the privacy fence.

I have always wanted to plant a garden when I got a house, but I also really wanted to do this because I wanted to save money. Food is expensive!!! So what better way to save money in the long run than growing your own veggies.

So I started at the beginning of April this year (2011). I had some spider attracting bushes in the front of my house that I wanted to get rid of so I trimmed them back with hedge clippers and then dug up the roots. My daughters had fun helping me.

That took some hours, but I was grateful they were gone. Instead of stopping for the day, we continued on and put together two 4ft by 4ft raised beds. I bought them from Home Depot for under $40 a piece (I purchased everything for my garden from Home Depot). Putting them together was very easy, even a kid could help do it. 🙂

When they were done, my daughter and I carried it over to the spot in front of my small front porch that we cleared out. After that was placed, I added 4 trellis because I planned on growing peas and beans. There are so many different kinds of Trellis

I decided on two 6ft wood fan trellis and two 3ft fan trellis. That way, when my peas and beans begin to grown up the trellis, it will also provide shaded cover for the front of my porch. I had to anchor the trellis with some wired ribbon, that is typically used to train your plants to grow up the trellis. I anchored it to the raised bed frame. I didn’t want to use the mounts because I didn’t want to drill into the front of my house.

I put two up one day and added the soil. The next day I added the other two and the rest of the soil. Now for soil. I used Miracle Gro Garden Soil for Flowers and Vegetables. They have small bags and they have really large 20 pound bags. I started with the small bags and then got big bags. I think I used about 200 pounds of soil when it was all done (more or less).

Now, some things I grew from sprouts and some things I grew from seeds. So I started planting April 4 and 5.
From Sprouts: Broccoili, Romaine Lettuce, Spinach, Flat leaf and curly Parsely, sage, rosemary, leeks.
From Bulbs: Yellow Onions, and Red Potatoes
From seeds: Sweet Peas, Bell Peppers, Collard Greens, Baby Buk Choy, Carrots, Basil

From this pic, most of the veggie are on the right, but on the left is the leeks, onions, broccoili, basil rosemary.

I was so excited, when I started seeing my first seeds start to sprout (the carrots and greens) about 2 weeks later

So everything was going great, until we had 1 late frost in late April. I was not paying attention to the news and didn’t find out until the following morning. Most of the veggies that I planted are frost resistant, except for the broccoili. So needless to say, they were the first to go.
Then not long after that my greens died. But everything else continue to florish. As you can see from the above pic, the Collard Greens are the ones that are starting to wilt in the middle. My Bell Pepper plant also did not sprout.

At the beginning of May, I ran into another problem, some stray dog kept doing it’s business in the empty area of my garden. I was going to go and buy a fence to put around it, although I really didn’t want to, but instead, my mother told me to put some black pepper down, and surprisingly it worked.

So this next photo was taken last week. My potatoes have gone crazy and are spreading, which I knew they world, however, they over-shadowed and smuthered my Buk Choy and thus, they died. I also started to train my Sweet Peas by tying them around the trellis with some gardening ribbon.

Additionally, in this photo, everything is growning nicely except my basil didn’t sprout properly .

Now, last week, I had to harvest some of my spinach, ( I need to harvest some of my Romaine to, but I don’t have room in the fridge yet 😉 ) that is why two pictures up you can see a silver strainer, and the next few post will be about 3 amazing dishes that I made using the spinach.

I also added a few more veggies to my garden last week.
From Sprouts: Bell Pepper (since it did not sprout from seed), cherry tomato and yellow curve-neck squash.
From seed: Green Beans, Asparagus Beans (like chinese long beans), Corn

Now I am waiting for the new additions to sprout and florish.