For the past several years or so, I've been hosting Christmas Eve dinner at my house. And for the past few years I've served home-made Tofu, Mushroom, Leek, Rosemary Ravioli.  Although no one besides me is vegan, everyone loves them.  I even cook extra to bring Christmas Day for myself and to share. 

I like to serve these with the same sauce I use to fill them...minus the tofu.  But you can top them with spaghetti sauce if you prefer.

Usually, my entire family gets together on a day before Christmas and makes ravioli and pizzelles.  This year, we had a date all set, but because everyone was so busy, we decided to make them after the holidays.  Since my father passed away last April and wouldn't be with us as he had been in years past, we decided to get together in his honor, on Jan. 7th, to make them. His birthday would have been January 6th, but since that falls on a Friday this year, we will be remembering him with ravioli making the following day.

Unfortunately, that meant that I wouldn't have ravioli for Christmas Eve dinner.  Since I really had my heart set on having them for the holidays I decided, with my mom's help, to make them before Christmas.  And since my ravioli will be all finished (and eaten) by the 7th, I'm thinking I may try and veganize the traditional family pizzelle recipe that day while everyone else makes "their" ravioli.  If they turn out yummy, I'll have to blog about them, too.

Here's how I make them:

See photos following the recipes.

Ingredients:

1 tsp. extra-virgin olive oil

3-4 cloves garlic, minced

2 leeks, cut lengthwise, rinsed thoroughly, and thinly sliced

2-3 tsps. dried rosemary, chopped

Soy sauce

1 ½ lbs. button and shiitake mushrooms

1 pkg. firm tofu, drained, pressed and crumbled

Directions:

In a large skillet heat the olive oil, leeks, garlic and rosemary.  When the leeks start to sizzle add a dash of soy sauce and cook, stirring, 2-3 minutes. 

Add the mushrooms and another dash of soy sauce and cook until the mushrooms begin to darken and exude liquid, stirring frequently.  Add another dash of soy sauce, cover and cook over low heat for about 30 minutes.  Add the crumbled tofu and heat through.

If using as ravioli filling it can be made ahead of time and kept in the refrigerator for a day or two.

You can use this on top of pasta. polenta, or any whole grain, too.

Inspired from a recipe by Christina Perillo’s Cooking the Whole Foods Way.

Filling photos:

 Chopped Garlic               Chopped Leeks             Chopped Mushrooms

Garlic, Leek, and Rosemary Saute

Garlic, Leek, Rosemary and Mushroom Saute                

Garlic, Leek, Rosemary, Mushroom and Tofu Filling

The Ravioli Dough:

Ingredients:

    3 cups semolina flour
    Ener-G egg substitute equal to 4 eggs (prepared)
    1 tablespoon salt
    1/2 cup or more water

Directions:

Combine flour and salt in bowl, add egg replacer and mix in. Add water to make a thick dough. Knead by hand or with the dough attachment on a mixer, and let rest 15 minutes to develop.

Keep the dough from drying out as you make the ravioli by covering it with a clean, damp dish towel.

If making by hand - Roll out dough thinly on a floured surface.  Cut into squares or circles.  Put a dollop of filling on each, wet edges and seal tightly.

If using a ravioli maker - cut off a small section of dough and run through the pasta maker on the widest setting (make sure the dough and pasta maker are well-floured)  Run the dough through several times, each time using a narrower setting until you have the desired thickness.  (I run mine through to the narrowest setting.) Place the rolled dough on the floured bottom tray of the ravioli maker.  Dust dough with flour.  Place the top tray of the ravioli maker on top of the dough to create depressions.  Fill each depression with filling.  Place another piece of rolled dough on top and roll with a floured rolling pin to seal the edges and sever them into individual ravioli.  Gently turn the tray over and push the ravioli out onto a floured surface. 

At this point, you can choose to cook the ravioli in boiling, salted water, or package them for freezing to be cooked later.  (This is what I do.)

If you are going to freeze them, place ravioli on either cookie sheets or in shirt boxes.  I like to use boxes because they have lids.  Place a layer of wax paper on the bottom of the box and sprinkle corn meal on the cookie tray or in the box and place the ravioli in a single layer.  If using boxes, you can make several layers by placing a sheet of wax paper on top of each layer and sprinkling each layer with additional corn meal.

Once frozen ravioli can be placed into freezer bags for easy storage.

 Ravioli Making Photos

 Ener-G Egg Replacer         Whipping Egg Replacer and water

 Semolina Flour                           Mixing Flour, Water and Prepared Egg Replacer

Passing piece of dough through pasta maker (final run)

Floured Ravioli Maker (bottom piece, L., top piece, R.)

Top piece of ravioli maker placed over bottom piece to create depressions in dough (notice rolled dough in between) Top piece of ravioli maker is then removed and the depressions are filled with the tofu, mushroom filling.  Then  another layer of rolled dough is placed on top of filled ravioli.

Rolling top layer of ravioli with rolling pin to seal the edges and sever each ravioli int individual ravioli.

Ravioli are carefully removed from ravioli maker.

Placed in box sprinkled with cornmeal.  Ready to be frozen.