Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Attempts at Being a Domestic Goddess: Ravioli Lasagna

Those who know me understand that I have food issues (no veggies, no peanut butter, no trying anything new unless I have fully mentally prepared). One of those issues is just Italian food in general. Whenever my family goes out to get Italian food I always order the wrong thing (unless I order pizza, in which case I always order the right thing). I kind of have an aversion to tomato based sauces, wine based sauces, and thick sauces in general. They just don't sit well on my pallet. Hence why I never make spaghetti, ravioli, etc. I'm just scared of it.

Well now I'm married. I'm not just cooking for myself and my 5 year old diet and I want to cook things that both Dan and I will like. This means trying (and tasting) new recipes. Tonight it was Ravioli Lasagna. I found a recipe for skillet lasagna (it used ravioli) that seemed harmless enough but then it got too complicated because I didn't have all the ingredients. So then I started searching for other ravioli lasagnas (we had just bought some spinach cheese ravioli from Costco (I love Costco)) and I discovered the tricks of the trade.

Here's what I did:

First I got out all of the ingredients I was going to use:
Ravioli
Hamburger Meat
Creamy Pesto Sauce
Mozzarella Cheese
Parmesan Cheese
Garlic
Italian Seasoning
Olive Oil

First I browned some hamburger meat
     Maybe the best thing my mother taught me was how to turn a hamburger patty into ground beef.
     You just put it in a frying pan and shred off the cooked parts of the patty until it is all shredded.
     Because I used some pretty junky hamburger meat I cooked it with some garlic and some Italian    seasoning.
     Then I let it sit on the stove on warm while I prepared the lasagna

Lasagna time
     I used my little Bella dutch oven so I prepared the heck out of it by washing it and spraying it heavily with non-stick cooking spray.
     I then lined the bottom of the dutch oven with some olive oil and the sauce
     Then layer raviolis, mozzarella, meat, sauce, raviolis, mozzarella, meat...
     I only did two layers since only two people would be eating it- you could probably do more though most of the recipes I read said only do two layers
     Top layer was sauce.
     Bake at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for 30 minutes
      Take out of oven add another layer of cheese (this is where I mixed in some parmesan) and put back in oven for 5 minutes or until cheese is melted.

We waited a little while to eat (30-45 min) but the little dutch oven kept it warm that whole time with the cover on.

So there really aren't any specific measurements on this recipe- basically just cover each layer in whatever layer it is- meat and cheese don't really follow this rule-add to your hearts content.

The pesto cream sauce is Archer Farms brand- Target's in-store brand and it was super good although I'm sure you can find some other good sauces out there.

Enjoy!

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