Wednesday, February 2, 2011

recipe of the week: sausage & ravioli lasagna

once in awhile a recipe is just what you need :)
i ran across this one in a southern living magazine a few months ago, and have been jonesing to make it ever since. monday night i was actually able to! it is SUPER easy and fairly quick -- it takes less than an hour total (maybe 45 min?), even including bake time.

i adapted the recipe somewhat, so it's not exactly as SL suggested at this point. i'll make notes of what i changed at the end.

sausage and ravioli lasagna

1/2 pound ground sausage or chicken sausage
1 24 ounce jar tomato and basil pasta sauce
(i used trader joe's, which comes in 26 oz. i just left a bit at the bottom of the jar for later.)
3 oz fresh baby spinach, thoroughly washed
1/2 cup pesto sauce
(again, used trader joe's...the bottle came out to exactly 1/2 cup)
20 oz package cheese filled ravioli
(if frozen, do not thaw)
1 cup shredded Italian six-cheese blend

preheat oven to 375
cook sausage in skillet over medium heat, stirring often, 10 minutes or until it crumbles and is no longer pink. drain, then stir pasta sauce into the sausage

chop spinach and toss with pesto in a bowl (i tore the spinach -- i like the rougher texture)
layer 1

spoon part of the sausage mixture into a lightly greased 11x7 baking dish until it covers the bottom. top with half of the spinach/pesto mixture. arrange half the ravioli in single layer over the spinach mixture. repeat layers. if there is remaining sausage mixture (i used a bigger dish so there wasn't), top with it and then sprinkle with cheese blend.
layer 2

bake at 375 for 30 minutes until hot and bubbly.
popped in the oven

30 minutes later

and 5 minutes after that

recommended by myself, anthony, his sister, his parents and his grandfather's nurse.  definitely a winning recipe!


***
original recipe called for 6 oz of baby spinach. that was just too much for my taste, and i wanted the pesto to be more pronounced, so i chose to put half that amount in.
the original recipe also called for a 25 oz package of frozen ravioli. that didn't exist in any grocery i went into, so i bought a 20 oz and a 9 oz package of four cheese fresh ravioli from the refrigerated section of kroger. um, i didn't even end up using the entire 20 ounce package, so i definitely have enough for a second batch of this stuff...which i will likely be making in the next 3 or 4 days!
lastly, it recommended baking the casserole for 30 minutes and adding the cheese for another 5-8 minutes. i decided to just toss it on at the same time. it worked out just fine.


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2 comments:

Nikki (Sarah) said...

looks pretty yummy

SONDRA PRICE said...

you know I love a good recipe! :)