Budget: Butternut Squash Ravioli & Soup

One thing I love about holiday cooking is the leftovers. The ideas for those leftovers can get a little bit challenging. Today I'm going to show you two great recipes using one of my favorite leftover veggies, butternut squash. Butternut squash leftovers. What are we going to do with them? Make raviolis. We have our butternut squash that I'm going to mash up a bit so they fit into our wrappers. Today we are using wonton wrappers acting as our pasta sheet. So let me just show you -- I have a damp towel over the wonton wrappers to keep them moist so that they don't dry out. I have a cup of ricotta, half a cup of parmesan, a little toasted garlic, sage -- I love fresh sage and butternut squash -- and a little parsley. A little salt and pepper. Give that a nice mix. Take a little teaspoon and put a little in each one. And then I have scrambled an egg and we are going to take this and paintbrush a little around the edges so that when we put our top wonton on, they will stick like glue. So then what I do is I pick it up and run my thumb along the filling to get the air out. I have a cookie cutter here and I'm just going to go around it. See how cute that is? What's great about these is when you use the wonton wrapper is you can actually boil them or fry them. Soup is also a great way to get rid of your leftovers. Today I'm going to show you a butternut squash soup. So I have diced my butternut squash. We are going to make a little bundle of herbs and spices. I have some fresh thyme, bay leaf, cinnamon stick and a little piece of twine that I'm going to wrap around and make an herb bundle. I've already sweated out an onion in a bit of butter so it's nice and soft. We are going to add our butternut squash and throw in our bundle. Then add a bit of chicken or vegetable stock; if you don't have either add water. I'm adding a bit of maple syrup for sweetness. With the cinnamon, it all works nice. I'm going to add a bit of pepper and some salt. This is going to simmer for about an hour. Then we will blend it up in the blender. We are going to remove the herb bundle and blend this up. Ladel it into the blender and blend it. That looks good, now I'm going to strain it. That looks beautiful. There you have it, our butternut squash ravioli and soup. For more recipes using your leftovers go to DinnerTool.com