Leftover Lentil Soup? Make Raviolis!

A few nights ago I made sausage and lentil soup. It was quite yummy, very simple. I had some left over but I had some for lunch the next day and the rest was just sitting in the refrigerator. So last night I dumped the soup into a colander to strain out the liquid and used the lentil-sausage-onion-carrot-garlic mixture that was left as ravioli filling.  It worked so well!

I have been keeping wonton wrappers on hand as a quick and easy way to make ravioli. One doesn't always have time to make pasta dough.

I think this method would work with most any soup (that doesn't have pasta in it already!).

I topped the raviolis with parsley-marjoram-pecan pesto:
1/2 c. marjoram (or thereabouts, loosely piled)
1/2 c. parsley
1/2 c. pecans (toasted)
juice of 1 lemon
1 clove garlic
1 t. salt

Zap in the food processor and add olive oil until it's the desired consistency.

Quick, easy, yummy, and seemingly fancy!

A Handful of Black Trumpets

I went for a hike, knowing there was a chanterelle patch in the area but really not wanting to find any. I'm done with those for the year (I found two anyway, even though i wasn't looking for them!).  I was really on the hunt for black trumpets. It looked like good terrain for them, I was convinced they were there.

So, like staring at one of those 3D prints with the hidden pictures, I stopped and stared at the hillside. Slowly, these leaf shadows become mushrooms before my eyes. Success!

Unfortunately, I scoured the area and only found a small handful of these black beauties but that's fine by me. I'd rather have a few than none, they are truly one of my favorites.  Nom nom.

And since I had so few and wanted to savor them as much as possible, I sauteed them in just olive oil and shallots and put them atop my Sunday food-church frittata. Sooooo yummy. I also added the two little chanterelles I found just because, what else could I do? I couldn't let them go bad.  I need to head out and find more trumpets, this whet my appetite for them, they are such a wonderful little fungus!