Pasta Prima Chicken & Mozzarella Ravioli With Rachel Ray's Peas And Prosciutto Sauce

We are big fans of Pasta Prima's Chicken and Mozzarella Ravioli and we have definitely enjoyed it before.  With it on sale again, we bought some to freeze and some to cook more immediately.  I thought something with a red sauce would be good and I remembered Rachel's Pasta, Peas and Prosciutto.  My wife seconded the idea and while she finished grading some papers for work, I got dinner going.

I did make a few of minor adjustments to Rachel's recipe.  The first one was that we don't any herbs from our garden yet, so I substituted some freeze dried basil.  Second, we left out the small can of tomato sauce.
Finally, I would say we added more like two cups of peas instead of one.

As for the result, it was very good. The peas add some color and texture you don't see in your typical red sauce plus it also adds another vegetable.  The prosciutto adds a bit of meat, but it is delicate and elegant in its flavor.  All these flavors went well with the ravioli.  And leaving out the small can of tomato sauce was exactly the thing to do. Otherwise, the dish would have had too much sauce.

This was definitely a success and it was a wonderful, flavorful Sunday evening meal that took very little work and time.

And it also left us enough for some nice lunches on Monday.

This positively gets two thumbs up from us and I am very confident in recommending this as an excellent use of this fine ravioli.

Pasta Prima Chicken & Mozzarella Ravioli With A Spicy Italian Brats Tomato Sauce

My wife and I are very fond of the Pasta Prima raviolis that we get at Costco. We had some of the fresh Chicken and Mozzarella variety in the fridge and it was calling to me. Given the more subdued flavors of the ravioli, I thought a sauce with a little excitement to it would be fun.  My wife agreed and after gathering all the elements for the sauce that we had on hand, I finished the provisioning by getting some spicy Italian brats from  a local meat shop, Montello's. The ingredient list this dish was pretty simple:

• EVOO
• 2 cloves garlic; peeled, pressed and chopped
• 1 medium yellow onion, peeled and diced
• Crushed red pepper
• 1 pound Italian brats, casings removed
• 1 28 ounce can diced tomatoes
• Fresh herbs: parsley, oregano and thyme

While my lovely wife removed the casings from the sausage, I sauteed the onion, garlic and crushed red pepper. Then we added the brats and I broke them up with a spoon as I cooked them.  After the brats were cooked, the tomatoes were added and I let it come to temperature and cook a bit as my wife got the fresh herbs.  The herbs were added just moments before serving and then we garnished our portions as we saw fit with grated cheese.

As you can see, it was a pretty dish and it went together in minutes.  As for the taste, it was excellent. My wife and I both commented that Italian brats were a lower fat alternative to typical Italian sausage, although I do think standard pork sausage would still work very well in this dish.

As we hoped, the sausage and the red pepper added some zing to the dish without making it just flavorless heat and spice.  The tomato and onion helped to add at least some vegetable, so you really have a good variety of meat, dairy, pasta and vegetables in this dish, making it a true one dish meal.

This was absolutely a home run: delicious, easy, affordable and quick.  I am sure we will be doing something very similar to this again.

Pasta Prima Chicken Mozzarella Ravioli With Pancetta And Vidalia Onions

We stocked up on the Pasta Prima Chicken Mozzarella Ravioli that was on sale last month and I thought it would be a good idea to make very simple sauce to help highlight the elegant flavor of the ravioli. This dish had only four components:

Pasta Prima Chicken and Mozzarella Ravioli-one package
About an inch think slice of pancetta, cubed
Half of a large vidalia onion, chopped
EVOO

All there was to cooking this dish was just browning the onion and pancetta and then just adding a bit of EVOO to have enough liquid to balance out the sauce.  By serving it with a romaine lettuce salad we had a fine and complete meal in just minutes.

My wife and I were both very pleased with how this turned out and it was definitely a success. The hearty taste of the pancetta complimented the more delicate flavor of the ravioli and the sweet, light taste of the onion.

Our only negative was that the dish is just a bit salty due to the pancetta being a salty meat. But let me be clear, it was a very sucessful dish. I am only saying that if we could figure a way to temper the saltiness of the meat in it a little, it would be perfect.

As it stands, it was a lovely meal and the return on our time was fabulous.

Twist On A BLT: Bacon & Tomato Ravioli With A Salad Of Romaine, Almonds & Dried Cranberries

As we move thoroughly into fall, I decided to buy one last batch of fresh tomatoes from the farmer's market.  Given that we still have a good quantity of that wonderful Pasta Prima ravioli from Costco, I thought I would do something with that. Since we had lettuce and tomato already included in the menu, adding bacon jumped into my mind.

I cooked up some onion, garlic and crushed red pepper in EVOO.  I then added the chopped fresh tomatoes and let soften and blend in. Finally, I  added in those bacon pieces you get in the bag (real bacon, please, no substitutes) and warmed it through.  We garnished it with grated cheese and ground black pepper.

While not brilliant, we both agreed this was a very good dish and it took about as much time to make as it does for me to  do a posting on it.  The crushed red pepper gave some background heat and using the last of the farmer's market tomatoes gave it a fresh flavor.  We will definitely make this again: quick, easy, tasty and affordable is a hard combination to beat.

To go along with the theme of BLT, we had a romaine lettuce salad. The dried cranberries (craisins) are on sale this month at Costco with a coupon so three pounds of them cost 3.99, a real bargain.  We finished the salad with those crunch sliced almonds you get at Costco and it made for a wonderful salad that was pretty also.

I am sure we will find lots of good uses for those craisins. Aside from being affordable, they are colorful, tasty and good for you.  I highly recommend buying a bag before the sale is over.

For wine, we had the Ecco Domani Pinot Grigio 2008 that was given a solid rating Costco Wine Blog.  While not the best Pinot Grigio ever, at less than $8 a bottle it is a very good value. This someone sweet wine went well with the freshness of the tomato and my wife and I both agreed with the review that it was easy to drink and enjoy with this dinner.

To sum this up, the concept of Bacon, Lettuce and Tomato being used together has been around for a long time, but this shows there are still ways to innovate and put new spins on the idea.