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.