Baked Toasted Ravioli

Hello all!
Last night I was feeling very nostalgic and missing home so I decided to try to find a recipe for Toasted Ravioli. This is another St. Louis specialty and is so darn good I get it any chance I can. The only issue I have is that they are usually fried and I'm not a big fan of frying if I can help it. For me frying is just too darn messy and I tend to burn myself nearly every time I fry foods. My poor hands are pocked with burns from grease so I try to avoid it. If you must fry, I highly recommend using an apparatus that you can plug in and then do so outside so you don't get all that oil in the air and layering your kitchen with it not to mention the smell that goes along with it. For me we use an OLD electric skillet that was bequeathed to us by Matt's Aunt Mary (I know! The man came with a bunt pan AND an electric skillet! It was love at first rummage through his kitchen, lol! The best part is he had no idea how to use either!). But since I try to avoid frying for health reasons as well, I shot for a recipe that baked the ravioli.
As a per-cursor, I have made ravioli from scratch and although its not difficult and you have the freedom to do all sorts of wonky flavors (spinach ravioli with feta, kalamata olives and oregano, or Pumpkin with panchetta apples and butternut squash), it is very time consuming, so thankfully this recipe uses pre-made frozen ravioli. I will try to remember to do a "Ravioli from scratch" tutorial on here one day, but until then, lets just go with:
(Here is the original link: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/breaded-toasted-ravioli/)

Baked Toasted Ravioli

Ingredients

• 1 egg white
• 1 teaspoon water
• 1 cup bread crumbs
• 2 teaspoon dried Italian seasoning
• 2 tablespoons freshly grated Parmesan cheese
• 1 (25 ounce) package cheese and/or beef ravioli, thawed if frozen
• cooking spray

 

Preheat an oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Place a wire rack on a baking sheet.

Beat together the egg white and water in a small bowl. 

You can't see it, but there is water in that teaspoon

See the discolored circle? That's where the water landed

Whisk whisk whisk!

Mix bread crumbs, oregano, basil, and Parmesan cheese in a large bowl. 

Dip each ravioli in the beaten egg, and then roll in the bread crumb mixture. 

Flippin the ravioli over in the egg white

Adding it to the bread crumb mixture

Tada! All covered!

Spray both sides of breaded ravioli with cooking spray; 

As I finished the ravioli, I put them on a plate so I could just spray a bunch with cooking spray at one time

Spray one side of the ravioli, then flip them and spray the other side. This will help the ravioli's toast without frying. Matt did this very well! It looks like shake and bake... and he helped!

This is what you have left from making 24 ravioli, so you could probably do 2 more, but not much over that

Place on the wire rack. 

So we did Raviolis on a wire rack on a cookie sheet that way if anything falls off (which it did see the crumbs??) they get caught on the cookie sheet rather than burning in your oven

Bake breaded ravioli in preheated oven until golden brown and crispy, 15 to 25 minutes.  

Look how nicely toasted!!!

Is your mouth watering yet??? Mine is!

Look how pretty!

Mmmm! Cheese ravioli! Nice white ricotta and Parmesan!

Meat ravioli! Nom nom nom!

Things learned from this recipe... If you use Panko bread crumbs you need to run them through the food processor because they're too chunky. They worked, but would have been better as a finer meal. Second, this was insanely easy and totally made me miss home just a smidgen less. Anyone can do this recipe, there was absolutely nothing technically difficult about it and in fact you don't even need to chop anything! The original recipe called for only dried basil and oregano, but since I didn't have dried basil (only fresh and frozen...) I went with Italian seasoning and it was great!

This recipe made 24 ravioli so you may have to scale up or down depending on how many people you want to feed. I personally chose to use both beef and cheese ravioli because I thought it would be nice to have variety, but if you're strictly vegetarian, you can go just cheese or if you're a hard core carnivore you can go for just the meat ravioli, or do both like I did!
Happy eating!

 

Angel Cake

Hello all!
Tonight I'm going to share with you a lovely recipe that was requested by a labmate. As a treat for her last week rotating in the lab I offered to bake her something yummy and she suggested this cake. I am so glad she suggested it because it was fast, easy and there are a bunch of ways to cheat! For one, if you don't like Angel Food cake, you can just make the "icing" and put in on a pound cake. If you don't feel like fighting with baking an Angel Food cake, you can just buy one from your local grocery store or bakery, but if you don't mind its super easy and quick. This is also what I'd like to call a "messy cake" it isn't a beautiful masterpiece like my Black Forrest Truffle cake,  rather it is crumbly, messy and globby but is is DELICIOUS and and there is a certain charm in its messiness. The only thing my cake was missing was berries and that was because someone who will remain nameless ate them and I forgot, so I didn't buy more.

Angel Cake

Ingredients:

1 box Angel Food cake

1 1/4 c. water

1 box instant vanilla pudding

1 can of crushed pineapple (20 oz)

1 8 oz tub of cool whip

Yep! This is all you need (well and some water and berries if you don't want a nekked cake)

Make the cake according to manufactures directions

Hey! Its cake mix!

Add water

All water added? Check!

Beat on low for 30 seconds... Notice where the cake is in the bowl

Beat on medium for 1 minute cake is higher up in the bowl

Place batter in fluted Angel Food cake pan. Mine is 2 parts and came with Matt when I married him. Not sure what I was most excited about when we got married, him or the cake pan I was getting...

Look at how big it got!  Puff!!!

If you pan is rockin' like mine, flip it over and let it set on its feet until it has cooled. If your pan does not have feet or the cake is taller than the feet then put the cake upside down on a wine bottle so that your cake doesn't deflate after cooking

While you're waiting for the cake to cool, make the icing. Alternatively if you're letting the cake cool over night, hold off until the next day to make the icing so its fresh and light. Also, don't leave the cool-whip out overnight or else it gets watery. Trust me...

Add the Jello mix to a bowl

Add the can of pineapple to the mix, DO NOT DRAIN, add the whole thing and mix well

Looks like chunky egg yolks, but tastes much better!

Fold the Cool-Whip into the mix

Cool-whip! I used a fork to mix this in instead of an electric mixer so that I could be gentle with it and keep it from deflating

All mixed and fluffy!

After the cake has cooled (can allow to cool over night), run a knife around the edge and free it from the pan. Now if you are lucky enough to have a 2 piece pan like me, then you can leave it on the base while you cut the cake. If not, then you will have a little harder time cutting it, but it is do-able. Just remember its OK if this cake looks like a blind man with a butcher knife cut it! Its supposed to be messy.  Slice the cake into 3 layers and put "icing" between each layer and then on top.

Be sure to use a serrated knife to cut the cake and saw it apart otherwise you'll just smush it

Cuttin' the cake

First layer on the cake carrier

First layer with fluffy icing on it

Close up to show you that I just globbed some on with the fork and pushed it around until it covered the cake

2nd layer with globby icing

Close up so you can see the globs coming out the bottom of the 2nd layer and see the icing on top of the second layer

Top layer on!

And the last layer of icing!!! Now all you need are some berries to make it less naked looking!

This was absolutely delectable! It was light enough to be perfect for a summer afternoon, but also could be served any time of the year. I brought this particular cake to work with me today to celebrate a co-worker getting her Green Card! I was so happy for her I wanted to bake a lovely light and lively cake to reflect her light and lively personality. Since she's from Denmark I probably should have made danishes, but this was so nice the first time around (and I didn't photograph it because it came out so UGLY) that I wanted to do it again. The caveat to this was all the comments and looks I got on my way to work. If I haven't mentioned this before I work in downtown Baltimore which is not the nicest area of the country. I work near the Shock-trauma unit downtown and as my friend put it, "They only put those units in areas where you see lots of traumas like gun shot wounds, etc." So it can be a rough area. But no one can be upset with a person carrying a cake! So today EVERYONE stared or smiled at me on the way in. A couple of guys, smiled real big and told me I shouldn't have! But they'd be glad to take the cake anyways. There wasn't anything menacing about this exchange just 2 guys who wanted some cake. Maybe I should make cupcakes one day and hand them out as I go... 

And with that food for thought, Happy Eating!

Grandmother's Chicken

Hi everyone!
Tonight's dinner is brought to you by Loren Samuelson. One of my oldest and dearest friends who sent me a great cookbook for my birthday this year. The cookbook is called, "Basic to Brilliant, Ya'll" and is written by a very funny lady (Virginia Willis) who is a traditional southern cook who took off to France and learned some techniques and tricks from the French. She is a hoot and very informative! Although tonight's meal was absolutely delicious, it was a huge pain in my you know what, mostly because I despise peeling garlic, hence why I usually use the frozen cubes from TJs. Thank God for sous chef Matt! He helped me make it through with only one conniption fit directed firmly at the garlic in question... Ok maybe 2 fits. So the reason this was a pain was prep only. It took probably 20 minutes to get the garlic, onions and potatoes chopped and ready to go and then another 30-40 minutes of cooking. So I'd say the whole thing took about an hour. Not a speedy meal, but one that will feed 4-6 easily and was very tasty, so if you can get past the peeling garlic, you're set. And for something that tasted like this, I can definitely get past it and I'm sure you can too!

Grandmother's Chicken

Ingredients:
- 1 Tbs of olive oil
- 1 Tbs unsalted butter
- 6 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs (you can use a whole cut up chicken or bone-in breasts)
- 4 slices of bacon, cut into "lardons" (thin strips- she doesn't like crumbling bacon either AND has a fancy name for it!)
- 6 shallots, peeled and trimmed
- 2 heads garlic (~20 cloves) separated, peeled, and tough ends removed
- 3 sprigs thyme
- 2 bay leaves
- 18 bite-sized fingerling potatoes, or 6 yukon gold potatoes cut into 1 inch chunks
- 12 white button or cremini mushrooms, stems trimmed (I used the cremini mushrooms tonight)
- 1/2 c. dry white wine
- 1 1/2  c. low sodium chicken broth

Peel the shallots and trim the ends.

Shallot! Looks like an itty bitty onion, especially in sous chef Matt's big man hands

The sous chef doing his thing

Peeled trimmed shallots!

Peel the &#^$#@*! garlic.- To help you with this, separate all cloves, place in a microwave safe bowl, and microwave for 30 seconds. it will partially cook some of the cloves but it will make the peeling MUCH quicker. And ya'll know I'm all about making it quicker!

The discolored parts are because I heated them. It pre-cooks some of them but to me it's worth it because it doesn't take as much time. If you want to cheat further I've heard you can buy these things already peeled and sealed in a baggie at the grocery store... hmmmmmm

Heat oil and butter in a large, heavy pot over medium-high heat.

Season the chicken with salt and pepper.

Cook without moving the pieces or crowding the pan, until well browned on all sides, 5-7 minutes. Take your time, you want a nice rich brown..

Transfer the chicken to a platter and keep warm. Pour off all but one Tablespoon of fat from the pan. Decrease the heat to medium.

Add the bacon, shallots, garlic, thyme and bay leaves. Cook stirring occasionally until the bacon starts to get crisp and the shallots and garlic take on a little color

BACON!!!

Garlic, fresh thyme and bay leaves

So pretty! I love this picture so much I made it bigger so you all can enjoy the pretty too!

Add the potatoes and mushrooms, season with salt and pepper and return the chicken to the pan

This is the moment where I said "Oh $*&%! Is this pan big enough?!?! It the largest one I've got!"

Well, I did the only thing I could. Salt and peppered the veggies and went on with the recipe

Holy cow! The chicken did fit! Whew!!! One big sigh of relief!

Pour the white wine and stock over the chicken and veggies.

After adding the wine and chicken broth have a glass for yourself. Of wine! Not chicken broth. Silly readers!

Cook until veggies are tender and the juices of the chicken run clear (OR internal temp reaches 165F). Approximately 20-25 minutes.

I cooked it for 10 minutes with the lid on...

And 15 minutes with the lid off. I did not remember to take the temp of my chicken thighs which was BAD. My chicken was a bit under-cooked when I ate it later. So learn from my mistake and check your chicken!

Last step... Server immediately and enjoy! I know I did, even with undercooked chicken it was FANTASTIC! I just had to toss the chicken back into the pan for another 5 minutes/side, but I got to eat delicious mushrooms and potatoes while I waited!
Happy Eating!