Baked Doughnut with Ricotta Filling & Eggplant & Silver Beet Lasagne

hmm... nothing much happenning today, the sfogliatelles I made last night are almost gone, well, more than half, hubby and the daughter were having a go at them...

But I still have half of the ricotta fillings left... I used 2 different recipes for my sfogliatelles because I think the Food Safari recipe for the fillings are for a large large quantity... I was right even with 1/3 of the quantity (the second recipe yelled for double amount for the dough) I still have half left.

So I made some doughnut dough, but I was hesitating on deep frying them... It's the health issue and also I don't like the smoke from the deep fryer when cooking.

So this is my baked doughnuts with ricotta filling...

For the Dough:
400g strong bread flour.
100g hand warm water
100g hand warm milk
2 tsp dry yeast
1 egg - beaten
50g butter
75g white sugar + 1tsp.

Disolve yeast in liquid and 1tsp of sugar and give it 15 minutes to fluff.... mix well flour and sugar. Add egg in and mix well. add in yeast mix and the rest of sugar.
Knead into a soft dough until elastic.
Set to prove for 2 hours or so until the dough doubles (mine quartripled)
Devide into 12 small balls and fold in the ricotta filling.
Roll into vegetable oil to coat the outside of skin.
set on cookie sheet lined with grease proof baking paper.
Bake in 190C oven for 20-25 min....

For the ricotta filling:
280g water
90g semolina
Ricotta 300gr
Sugar 150gr
Eggs 100gr
Candied fruit in cube 100gr
Cinnamon, a pinch
Salt, a pinch

Bring the water, salt and vanilla to a boil
Add the semolina and boil 4-5 minutes.
Beat the eggs in room temperature and add to the above mixture




I think they will come out nicely deep fried and with nice glazes etc, but we are pretty sugared out lately!


I decided to make lasagne for dinner... actually I've got silver beets and egg plant that i have to use. I've been thinking... Spanakopita, Moussaka... but I've just done pork mince last night and I don't have any Feta.... but since I have a lot of ricotta cheese left, I can make my very own vegetarian (well, sort of, you will know what I mean) lasagne... I always make my own lasagne sheets, today, it's no difference

200g strong flour, 2 eggs and a pinch of salt, a drizzle of olive oil, and that's what I usually do...
Normally I make meat sauce lasagnes as the children love that, but today, boy's not home for dinner, daughter had chicken for dinner and I'm experimenting again... I'm not sure if an Italian will have a heart attack with this, but this is my lasagne.....

Bottom layer is the silver beet, I sauted some sliced onion and garlic, and then chucked in the sliced silver beets to sweat... just a pinch of salt and I drained the juice, added some lemon zest, a handful of fresh parsley and layed spread it on the bottom layer of lasagne sheets... spread around almost 250g of ricotta (I love ricotta) and sprinkled salt and pepper..

Lined with lasagne sheets again and some shredded mozerella cheese (not the baffalo type just the common ones from local supermarket) and I layed the chargrilled egg plants (I didn't go for the deep fried version, just the healthier chargrilled version) and in between I lined some salami slices (I had to put in some meats there, although I love vegetarian food, but hubby would love to taste a bit of meat)






It's a simple, pleasant (for me that is) dinner and is not too heavy at all, and hmmm still some room for trying out the doughnuts...