Santa's descenders

I'm hosting a lonely orphan holiday pot luck tomorrow. Instead of making traditional holiday food, I decided to invent a new dish. There's a package of won ton wrappers in the refrigerator, so I've been thinking about dumpling/ravioli/filled pasta type dishes all week. Stuffed pasta it is! Sometimes inspiration strikes when you're trying to clean out the refrigerator. (And yes, I bought these won ton wraps because of the panda on the package.)


Off to the backyard to forage for ingredients. Mutant swiss chard that I planted two Septembers ago are still going strong. I have no idea why they havn't gone to seed yet. They grow in festive bright red and green colors that would look attractive when the won ton skins go translucent. I'll even use the bright red stems. I hope the mutant chard don't kill my guests tomorrow. That would be bad.


For the filling, I thought about using pumpkin seeds to add a bit of crunch, maybe a bit of fall harvest theme. I definitely want something crunchy so the raviola won't be evenly smooshy when you bite into it. Much more interesting texture-wise with some crunch. But I didn't think the earthy pumpkin seeds would complement the brown butter sage sauce I was hoping to dress these with. Instead, I threw in a handful of toasted pine nuts with the chard. Buttery pine nuts match better with butter sage sauce. That's why some butter cookies have pine nuts as garnish. And a few scoops of ricotta to bind it all together. A few fluffs of parmesan cheese because I like playing with the microplane grater. Salt, pepper, probably other stuff I don't remember. I might have added an egg, I'm not sure. Sauted lightly with shallots, the filling would finish cooking in the same amount of time for the wrapper to become translucent and tender. I used the red spatula because it's nearly Xmas.


Lightly blanched garlic chive flowers. This makes them pliable enough to tie like ribbons. And they add a hint of garlic flavor- this way I didn't have to add garlic to the filling. Makes it more interesting too. And by having asymmetrical raviola, the fluffy pasta tops will also be different from the filled section. Each bite will be different both in flavor and texture.


Little bundles of ravioli things. They didn't really need the chive flowers to stay closed, since a simple twist keeps it all together. But it looked really neat with the chives tied like a ribbon. Made with love.(tm) Inspired by Santa and his sack of toys, I was going to call these Santa's Sacks. But the name Santa's Sacks have an unfortunate genital connotation. Hence, they are christened Santa Bundles.