real life test kitchen
What better way to usher in the new season of the Soprano’s than with some gooey, fully loaded, deep dish lasagna? Not having as much kitchen time as Carmela herself, I decided to try a shortcut recipe from this month’s Food and Wine. In a nutshell, it involves cooking some fresh ravioli, stirring in marinara sauce, and then layering it in a baking pan with mozzarella and grilled veggies. I bought the veggies and the sauce readymade from the Italian deli down the road, so the only true skill required was assemblage. The results, as you’ll see from the pictures on the next page, were quite satisfying. But enough about food — what did you think of the episode?
layering in the ravioli and sauce (make
sure the ravioli is undercooked slighlty)
sprinkling in parmesan over diced
grilled vegetables and fresh mozzarella cheese
bake 30 minutes covered, 30 minutes uncovered,
and then serve
March 14th, 2006 at 2:21 pm
What a great idea! This looks so good and easy. By the way, I LOVE your site! You have so many clever and amazing ideas and entries. Congrats!!!
March 26th, 2006 at 10:34 pm
Hi, I just wanted to let you know, your post inspired my own version of Soprano Sunday, no ravoli, but a truckload of pasta and a violin case chucked in for good measure.
March 27th, 2006 at 10:28 am
I made a casserole full of this Sunday. I roasted some mushrooms, garlic and asparagus instead of grilling vegetables. I used Marinara with wine sauce and lots of it. It boiled over in the oven but was gooey and delicious. I’m glad Tony is out of the coma at last. Wonder what happened to his alter ego Finnerty?
April 2nd, 2006 at 9:33 pm
With the exception of the roast veggies, that’s from Real Simple in… 2002? 2003? The recipe is on their website, and was also featured on one of the first episodes of their tv show. It uses boxed frozen spinach, thawed, but it seems like plenty of people have made the recipe with other vegetables. I really don’t know where they got the recipe from, but it seems like Food & Wine got it from them, or from the same original source.
I like it best with Patsy’s Pizzaiola sauce, but that stuff is around $6-8/jar, so I’ve tried it with others. Some work, some don’t. I do not like it with my regular pasta sauce, Barilla Boscaiola (mushroom/garlic). I also do it with the Kraft Parmesan/Romano/Asiago blend, rather than just sprinkling parmesan on top. It makes the flavor richer.
April 2nd, 2006 at 9:36 pm
PS the Real Simple version is done with frozen ravioli, which seems to make no difference. I used to use Celentano rounds, but it’s easier to layer the stuff in with square ravioli.