All My Cooking is Not Successful

A month or so ago we invited some young friends for dinner for tonight. As the time got closer I learned that the husband does not eat fish. Russ does not eat meat so that left me with Chicken or Veggies. Since Russ got a new pasta maker for his birthday I decided I would try and make butternut squash ravioli. I had successfully made spaghetti with the new machine and thought how much trouble could lasagna noodles be?

I baked the butternut squash and mixed the flesh with eggs, nutmeg, salt and pepper for the filling. Then I attempted to make the pasta. It was not easy. As the wide flat noodles extruded they curled in on themselves. I cut them short and tried to make pockets of ravioli. They looked terrible and I was totally unsure that they would not burst open when cooked.

Russ usually has great confidence in my cooking, but even he thought we needed a plan B. So he went to the local Italian Pasta makers and bought some pumpkin ravioli. I was left with a big bowl of the butternut squash filling. Russ thought I could make butternut squash bread, but with all the black pepper in it I thought I should do something savory.

I couldn’t turn it into soup since it had raw eggs in it. So I decided to make a savory butternut cheese cake. It was a good way to turn a fail into something edible.

From the photos they both look like fails.

Crust

1 cup panko bread crumb

1/3 cup Parmesan Cheese

4 T. Butter melted

Cheese cake

1 large butternut squash

5 eggs

1 c. Ricotta cheese

16 Oz. Cream cheese

2 t. Nutmeg

Salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 350°. Halve the butternut squash and remove seeds and strings. Place face down on a butter foil covered cookie sheet. Bake for 1 hour until a fork goes in easily.

Set aside to cool.

Butter a large spring form pan.

Mix panko, Parmesan and melted putter together and press into the bottom of the pan. Bake for ten minutes in 350° oven.

In a mixer beat cream cheese with eggs. Scrape out the flesh from cooled squash and add to cream cheese and beat. Add ricotta, and spices, lots of pepper and 1 T salt. Pour mixture into spring form pan on top of crust.

Wrap the bottom. Of the spring form pan in foil so water can’t get in to it.

Place pan in a oblong backing pan and fill the pan with boiling water until it is half way up the sides of the spring form pan. Bake in 350° oven for one hour. Can be served hot or room temp.