Lobster Ravioli w/ Vodka Sauce

Yesterday was the start of the Chinese New Year, a holiday my family used to celebrate as a child.  We'd clean the house from top to bottom in preparation for the new year, children would get little red envelopes with money inside, and the whole family would sit down to a special feast like meal.  We no longer really celebrate the holiday with all the hoopla, but I did want to mark the day with a special meal.  The color red signifies good luck and fortune, so I thought I should make a tomato based sauce.  I decided on Lobster Ravioli with Vodka Sauce.

First I made the filling.  I used 8 oz of lobster.  You can use the fake stuff, but make sure that it uses potato starch instead of wheat starch as a binder.  I added 3oz of cream cheese, 1 sliced scallion - both the white and the green parts, and 1 tbsp worcestershire sauce.  I combined all the ingredients and set them aside.

Next I sprinkled sweet rice flour across my work surface.

I rolled out half of my wonton dough recipe until it was quite thin and cut it into 2 inch strips.  You can use a pasta roller to roll out the dough. 

 I placed a tsp of the filling 1 inch apart along the strip of dough,

 painted eggwash around each ball of filling,

and folded the dough over pressing down between each lump of filling.

I cut between each ball of filling to create the individual raviolis,

 and then crimped the edges with a fork.

I placed these in boiling water to cook.  They're done when they float.  You can keep these on oiled parchment in a 300 oven to stay warm while you make the sauce.  The sauce I made is a variation of this one from Allrecipes, except I didn't use any prosciutto(because I didn't have any in the house,) and I substituted half and half for the heavy cream.

Thanks for popping in and cooking with me.  I'm linking this up to Simply Sugar & Gluten-Free's Slightly Indulgent Tuesdays, Gluten-Free Homemaker's Gluten-Free Wednesdays and Lisa's Gluten-Free Food and Health Carnival.

Where Do You Put that Ugly Box?

Rene at Cottage and Vine is in the process of selling her entertainment armoire to possibly be replaced with a tv console.  She's hosting a linkup party to help her with ideas for what to do with the tv.  I'm not a big fan of TV's.  They're ugly and the big ones end up looking like a giant black hole.  The worst part is that you have to orient your furniture around them, because, let's face it, we all like to watch them.  So how do you make this necessary focal point attractive?

This is what we did.  We built an entertainment wall/bookcase across the entire length of the wall in our basement family room.  It was my hope that the tv would just blend in with the entire wall being the focal point.  When we started building this wall, we had a 35" tv set.  I designed the wall with a space large enough for a 42" tv(which we now have.)

 This is obviously still a work in progress.  Half the drawers still need their handles installed and the doors need to be installed.  I have yet to buy the hinges for the doors, so who knows when they'll go in.

We built in an aquarium for another large black glass portion of the entertainment/bookcase wall.

How much do I dislike the look of tvs?  I don't have one at all in our living room.  The one in our bedroom is hidden away in an armoire.  WD's is on an articulating arm and tucks away in the corner of his room.  SB's is tucked up in a corner of his room amongst his stuffed animals.

So this is how I try to hide the big black box.  What about you?  Stop over at Cottage and Vine and check out how everyone else is dealing with their tvs.

Thanks for popping in and checking out our tv storage.  Hopefully posting these pics will be the push I need to finish up the entertainment wall.

Subway News

Okay, so this is new to me news.  Subway restaurants are testing out gluten-free sandwiches!  The 700 test sites are in Texas.  You can read more about it here.

There are some kinks to work out.  Obviously the bread can't be baked on site, because they don't have the dedicated space to avoid cross-contamination.  Bread is wrapped in plastic and they're using a dedicated color coded knife for the gf subs.  If this experiment works out, they'll roll it out across the nation.

This is super exciting news for me, because of the possibilities it opens up for Whirling Dervish.  His highschool has an open campus policy.  Students are allowed to leave campus during lunch and study halls.  Many of WD's classmates take advantage of this by walking to area restaurants.  The problem for WD has been that the restaurants within walking distance are Subway, Best Bagels inTown, Dunkin Donuts, and the Vestal Bakery.  Not exactly friendly places for someone eating gluten-free.

If Subway rolls out gluten-free to all of it's franchises, WD might be able to enjoy a lunch off campus like a "normal" kid.  Yay!

Thanks for popping in and sharing in this exciting news.  I'm linking this up to Gluten-Free Homemaker's Gluten-Free Wednesdays.

7 Layer Bars

Those of you who have been following my blog know that I love to bake.  I bake a lot - at least 3 or 4 times a week.  So it's no surprise that the oven gets fired up during a snow day.  Today I made classic 7 layer bars with Snuggle Bunny while Whirling Dervish was out making money clearing driveways.

These bars start with a graham cracker crust.  I like to use these graham crackers from The Grainless Baker.  They come in perfect squares for s'mores making.  I used 20 of these graham crackers, but if you're not gluten-free you can use 10 traditional graham crackers.

I put the graham crackers in a ziplock bag and handed my assistant my meat tenderizer flat side down.  SB had a blast whacking away at the bag, pulverizing the crackers into crumbs.   Alternatively, you can use a rolling pin or crush them in your food processor.

I melted 6 tablespoons of butter, poured it into the bag of crumbs, and smooshed them around until all of the crumbs had been coated with the butter.  I then pressed the crumbs into the bottom of a parchment lined 9x13 baking dish.

SB sprinkled 1 cup of butterscotch chips over the crust,

followed by 1 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips,

1 cup of walnuts,

 and 1 cup of white chocolate chips.

1 can of sweetened condensed milk is poured ontop, followed by 1 cup of shredded coconut.

I baked these at 350 for 30 minutes.  After I pulled them out of the oven I let them cool before cutting them up into squares.

If you were wondering why I always line my pans even the nonstick ones, this is why.  After the bars have cooled, I can slide the whole thing out of the pan to slice up.  It's much easier to do without the sides of the pan interfering and none of the bars get mushed up trying to get them out of the pan.

Thanks for popping in and baking with me.  I'm linking this up to Joyful Housewife's Mouthwatering Mondays and Gluten-Free Homemaker's Gluten-Free Wednesdays.

Wishing for Spring

Whirling Dervish had showered, dressed, and eaten breakfast when I informed him that school had been cancelled.  He sputtered, "but, I looked outside before I got dressed."  Absolutely nothing is going on outside.  Nothing at all.  But the weather forecast is calling for a fun wintry mix of snow, ice, and sleet for the next 2 days.  We're expecting it to look like this.

Any chance of ice means closing of school, because the buses just can't make it up the hills when there's a layer of ice down.

So with school out, I have my boys all day and probably for tomorrow, too.  That means I'll be switching to kid crafts today instead of working on the projects I have in the hopper.  Speaking of projects I have in the line, I found this totally fun fabric in the red tag section at JoAnn's that practically screams spring.

How fun is that?  I bought what was left on the bolt, so that's about 3 yards.  I'm thinking a pillow, and maybe an apron and pot holder.  What do you think I should do with it?

Thanks for popping in on this extra wintry day.  Hope you all stay warm today.