ARF Tuesday - Ravioli Casserole

When trying to decide what to make for ARF Tuesday this week I began to think Italian because of an abundance of tomato products I happened to have on hand. I had a large container of pasta sauce and a small container of tomato paste in the freezer as well as some diced tomatoes and tomato sauce in the refrigerator. I figured I'd add all of those items to my crock pot and let it simmer for most of the day today to make a sauce.

When I first thought of this recipe I had originally intended to make *ravioli*. I didn't know if my family would like them nor was I sure if they would turn out right since I've never made them before. The whole idea of making ravioli from scratch came to me when I read on a package of wanton wrappers that they are "good for ravioli". The only reason I have never tried to make ravioli before is that I don't own a pasta machine so using wonton wrappers sounded like a great idea! I love ravioli!

I started to make this recipe yesterday. For the filling, I began with 3/4 lb. each of ground turkey and ground beef. I combined those and added it to a large skillet to brown and seasoned it with about 1 cup of frozen chopped spinach (still frozen), some garlic powder, onion powder, salt, pepper, basil, fennel seed, and oregano and parsley. Once the meat browned well I added some fresh Parmesan cheese and mixed it well.

I added about 1 1/2 Tablespoon of the filling onto a wonton wrapper then topped that with a pinch of mozzarella cheese, wet the edges with a little water and applied a second wrapper then pinched the edges shut. I repeated the process which yielded 20 ravioli. I then froze them in ziploc bags (be sure to lay them flat inside the bag, side by side or they will stick together).

When I was ready to prepare the ravioli for dinner tonight, I put most of them in the crock pot right along with the sauce once it was hot and let them cook right in the sauce. I added the remainder to a pot of boiling water (for my pasta sauce hating 6 year old). That is when the recipe began to take on a new dimension.

First of all, the ravioli that I put into the pasta sauce cooked just fine, however I learned that wonton wrappers are NOT as "good" for ravioli as the package states. They taste great and cook just fine but they are VERY delicate. The ravioli stuck together and we basically had to eat this as a casserole because we could not plate them seperatly since they easily fell apart. The raviolis that I boiled all did fine except for one that got a hole in it and the filling fell out. Those were also very delicate and the only reason I could remove them from the pot easily is because I cooked only about 4 or 5 of them and pretty much slid them out of the pot.

All in all this was a great recipe because my family loved it and asked that I make it again soon. My husband doesn't usually care for ground turkey in dishes like this and he didn't even notice until I told him. My 1 1/2 year old NEVER eats ground meat of any kind and she ate every bite. 4 year old gave a thumbs up and 6 year old loved the sauce-less version as well.