Long Island Gardening Community Resource

Tonight I made a dish that was so good, I needed to document it one way or another. We had some fresh pumpkin ravioli in the fridge and it so happened we also had about 30 tomatos ripened in their vines (unlikely circumstances I know). I wanted to make sauce and store it, but I also wanted to use some of the sauce for the raviolis.

The base sauce was made of the tomatos, garlic, onion, dried oregano, dried rosemary, and some salt and pepper (simple base sauce for making other sauces).

Cube a Butternut Squash and peeled some garlic and cut the cloves in half (bout 8 cloves). Got a saucepan pan nice and hot. Throw in some ghee (substitute: olive oil) and then the squash. Brown the Squash a bit and get some delicious brown bits on the bottom of the pan. Threw in some red wine after about 5 minutes and the base sauce as well (equal parts) and deglaze the brown delcious bits off the bottom and into the sauce. Added a bit of honey, corriander, pinch of cumin, salt and pepper. and let it reduce to a nice thickess about 10-15min. (depending on how much you make). During that time boile some water with salt and oil and throw the raviolis in. When they float to the top, I take them out and place them directly into the saucepan with the sauce reduction. I added 5-7 tablespoons of the pasta water to the sauce (to spread it out a bit). Let the raviolis simmer in the sauce for a minute or two. Serve and add parmesean shavings on top.

This sauce can be used with any pasta or whatever you want. The technique of deglazing is one that appeals to me because it captures the concentrated burned bits that deliver so much flavor to the sauce. Usually, it is used with meat, but in this case the browned squash bits really packed the harvest flavor.