The Funky Kitchen

The last time I was here it was 4 November. And now, it is 3 December! It’s so crazy how time flies! Since 4 November: we’ve almost finished the house, we’ll be moving in in approximately two weeks, I’ve written 43 pages worth of papers (43!?!?) and it has snowed more than a foot. Between school, work, and house fixing I haven’t had much time for rolling out the laptop for you guys out in blog land. I’ve got a store of things on my camera, though, so I’ll get you up to date as soon as I can.

Oh my dear readers, I’ve missed you so.

Anyway, I have a long running Wednesday lunch date with a new but dear friend. She is a very accomplished cook, and a genius storyteller. One Wednesday, not too many Wednesdays ago, it was this friend’s birthday. Instead of having her prepare a lunch, as she does on Wednesday lunches, myself and my fellow lunch-goers brought a lunch to her. On the menu: tortellini soup, a mixed baby greens with chevre and cranberry salad, sambuca shrimp and lemon meringue pie. It was quite a lunch!

I made the tortellini soup, but that will come later. First: easy cheater tortellini!

Labneh Cheater Tortellini

(methodology gleaned from my cousin who filled them with sweet potato!)

Ingredients

250 grams Labneh (labneh is a yorgurt cheese, feel free to use ricotta or whatever interests you for a filling)

2 eggs

1 tsp oregano

1/4 tsp kosher salt

1/4 tsp black pepper

1 package of wonton wrappers

Directions

• Combine labneh, egg, oregano, pepper and salt in a bowl. Stir until uniform. This will be the tortellini filling
• Take the wonton wrappers out of their package. While they are all still in a neat stack, cut off the bottom quarter of the whole pile in one fell swoop. You’ll be left with rectangles instead of squares, and I found that these worked a lot better for me.
• Get a bowl and fill it with warm water.
• Pull a wonton wrapper off the pile and place it on the work surface. Dipping your fingers in the water bowl, moisten the entire perimeter of the wonton wrapper. Then, put a line of the filling across one of the long sides, just inside of the wet edge (I used a piping bag for this, and it made life so much less messy). Fold the wonton wrapper over the filling, pinching the edges so that the filling won’t escape. Roll it up like a cigar, wrap it around one of your fingers, and pinch the edges together.

• Ta da! You have a beautiful little cheated tortellini. Repeat and repeat until you run out of wonton wrappers.

I know it’s cheating, using wonton wrappers instead of  real pasta. But I bet if you didn’t hear it you wouldn’t have known. I’m still yet to try out homemade pasta making, and this method just does away with so much rolling and cutting. I’ll get up my gumption one day and make real tortellini.

Labneh made a very interesting tortellini filling, creamy and lovely. I had hoped that it would have kept some of the acidic bite it had uncooked, but I think they may have sat a little too long in the soup while I drove it to the lunch date birthday party. (Note to self: if you’re taking tortellini soup somewhere, warm it up again when you get there and then add the tortellini).

Overall, they made for a very tasty tortellini soup, recipe soon to follow, and would be really good as well with a simple brown butter and herb (I’m thinking sage) sauce. They were worth every bit of effort.

And to my lovely lunching friend, happy birthday again, even though it was really on the 17th.

Tags: birthday, cheat, cheater tortellini, friends, labneh, lunch, tortellini, yogurt cheese