Upside Down Ravioli

I wrote this on our weekly menu list and Evan stared at it and then looked at me funny. "Um, if it's upside down ravioli...isn't it the same? Ravioli looks the same on both sides."

I have no idea why it's called this, but it was super yummy. And not ravioli like whatsoever.

The ingredients:

8 oz. jumbo shells; 1 lb. ground beef; 2 Tbsp. olive oil; 6 oz. baby spinach, chopped; 1 C. finely chopped onion; 1 garlic clove, minced; 1 tsp. salt; 1/4 tsp. pepper; 1/8 tsp. nutmeg; 1 egg; 1/4 C. parmesan cheese; 26 oz. marinara sauce of your choosing; 1/2 C. reserved pasta water. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Cook the jumbo shells while you brown the beef and onions together in a large skillet.
While all of that is a bubblin' and a brewin', take that lovely spinach...
and chop the living day lights out of it.
Add it to the beef once it's browned and drained of grease.
Now, add the olive oil...
the garlic that I totally forgot to put in the ingredients picture...

the reserved pasta water...
Stir like you have never stirred before!! Remove the skillet from the heat.
Now, add the salt...
the pepper...
and the nutmeg. Let the mixture cool for a few minutes.
Once the meat mixture is cooled, as the parmesan...
and the egg. Stir again.
In a 9x13 dish, pour 1 Cup of the marinara sauce into the bottom of the pan and spread it around.
Take your jumbo shells and fill them with the meat mixture.
Line them up in the dish. (Does this remind anyone else of the story from Alice in Wonderland when the walrus eats the clams? Anyone? Anyone???)
Pour the rest of the marinara sauce over the top of the shells.
I tried to put them directly into the oven to cook, I really did!! But, I just couldn't. They looked so naked. So, I grabbed a bag of mozzarella cheese and dumped some on top.
Phew. I feel so much better about this dish now.

Bake for 30 minutes.

Mmm...melted cheese. You make my pasta dishes so deliciously beautiful.
We ate our Upside Down Ravioli with salad and Italian bread.
I loved this dish. I found the meat mixture super yummy and different than other stuffed pasta dishes that ask for a lot of cheeses to be in the mixture. It made for good leftovers, too.

Evan does not like jumbo shells. He can not give me a reason why. I think he's just a complete weirdo, but that's just my humble opinion. Despite the pasta I used, he did like the dish and agreed with me about the meat mixture being yummy.

This would be a great dish to make for company or if you have a larger family because it definitely makes a lot.

Enjoy!

Hamburger Stroganoff

It's a new year and one of my goals for the year is to continue cooking through my cook book collection!!!

I realized that, although I turn to my Betty Crocker cook book when I can't find answers to cooking questions on line, I never take advantage of all the fabulous recipes in the cook book.

So, I've added Ms. Betty to my rotation of recipes for my meal planning and this recipe was one I used for last week.

Evan loves beef stroganoff, so I figured he might like a hamburger version.

The ingredients: (I'm sorry that the ground beef in the picture looks so grotesque. No matter how much I asked and pleaded, it just would not put on it's pretty picture face.)

1 lb. lean ground beef; 1 medium onion, chopped; 1 clove garlic, finely chopped; 1 can condensed cream of mushroom soup; 1 can (4oz.) mushrooms, drained; 1/2 tsp. salt; 1 C. sour cream or plain yogurt; 1 pkg. egg noodles, cooked; paprika, salt, pepper and garlic powder to taste.

Ok, so I did not buy soup because it was not on my grocery list because I neglected to write it on my grocery list and if it's not on the grocery list it does not get bought! (Or so I preach to Evan and Elisabeth and apparently need to preach to myself as well.) Thankfully, I had a bag of frozen mushrooms in the freezer and I decided to make my own ding dong cream of mushroom soup. It was surprisingly simple. Let me show you...

First, take 1/2 a pound of the frozen mushrooms and cook them in one cup of water for 15 minutes. No boiling, please.
Drain the mushrooms (but keep the liquid!) and put the mushrooms in a skillet with 2 Tbsp. of butter and cook them together for about 10 minutes.
Add 1 Tbsp. of flour to the mushrooms and stir until all the mushrooms are coated in flour.
Add 3 C. of milk (preferably whole, but I only had skim and it was just fine for this recipe) and
the mushroom liquid you saved. Stir and allow it all to cook together for about 5-10 minutes. Then, remove the soup from the skillet and save it for later on in the recipe.
Now, brown that beef (go ahead and use the same skillet because you're just going to combine them all again in it soon anyway) along with...
the onion and the garlic. Make sure you drain all of that icky grease!

Ok, I stink and totally didn't take pictures of the rest of the process, so just pretend like you are watching me do the next few steps, ok? Thanks.

Stir in the soup we made (or the can you bought), the remainder of the frozen mushrooms (or the can you bought) and the salt into the beef. Simmer, uncovered, until a good portion of the homemade soup we made has evaporated and then lower the heat to low. I'd say that I simmered it all for about 15 minutes and then let it cook on low for another 5 minutes.

Now, taste the sauce. Evan and I found it bland, so we added salt, pepper, paprika and garlic powder until we found it perfect. Just keep sprinkling, stirring and sampling until you find it to your liking.

Stir in the sour cream until it is blended into the sauce and hot.

We served our hamburger stroganoff with green beens and salad.
This is definitely a comfort food dish. The girls loved the noodles (of course) and asked for the "stroganoff" part on the side. Elisabeth eventually mixed them together and liked them. Everyone (including our dinner guest, one of Evan's co-workers) had seconds. The leftovers were eaten just as quickly!!!

Enjoy!

Ham & Noodle Casserole

I have only recently begun liking ham.

I distinctly remember hating it as a child. It was always served on Thanksgiving and Christmas and I didn't like the smell, the look, the taste. If ham was the only meat served at one of the holiday meals, I ate only sides. And desserts.

As the years have gone by, I went from hating to ham to only disliking it to tolerating it. This year, however, I believe I have moved on to liking it.

It's okay to be proud of me; I am.

One of the couples who came to celebrate Thanksgiving with us brought a full ham. They very kindly left us with a bajillion pounds of it in our refrigerator. You can only eat so many ham sandwiches before you start hunting around for a recipe to help you get rid of it faster. I found this recipe and after making it, knew I needed to share it with you all. Some of you may be having ham dinners in the next couple of weeks and you need to have a back up recipe for leftovers!!!

The ingredients:

2 Tbsp. butter; 1/4 C. chopped onions; 1/2 C. chopped green onions; 1 can mushroom soup, undiluted; 1 C. sour cream; 1 (8 or 10 oz.) package of noodles, cooked and drained; 2 C. shredded Swiss cheese; 4 C. cooked ham, cut up. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

I need you to stop right here and pay close attention. This is the soup you need:
No matter how hard your hand tries to auto-pilot you to the cream of mushroom soup, it is not the soup you seek. GOLDEN MUSHROOM SOUP. Say it ten times before walking down the soup aisle. Don't let your mind try to play tricks on you!!!

Start by melting the butter in a medium pot and saute the onions...
and the green peppers.

Once the veggies are sauteed, remove from heat. Add the GOLDEN MUSHROOM SOUP...

and the sour cream.
Stir.
Cut up all that leftover ham you have learned to like.
You are ready to layer.

First start with a layer of noodles (1/3 of your total noodles).
Add 1/3 of the cheese. (I hunted the entire cheese aisle for shredded swiss and did not find it. The slices worked just as well for me.)
Add 1/3 of the ham.
Add half of the soup mixture.
Repeat the layers. The last third of the ham is the last layer.
Bake for 45 minutes until it looks like this:
People, I need to tell you how yummy this meal was--it was yummy!!!!
We all liked it; even Evan who is leery of all things with "casserole" in the title. It's totally the soup mixture and the swiss cheese that really give this casserole dimension. Please do not substitute the cheese because I think it would totally change the whole song and dance of the dish and would ruin it. We felt it needed salt and pepper and I will add them next time. It was great warmed up as left overs as well. I will definitely be using this recipe in the future for all left over ham emergencies.

Enjoy!!!

Ravioli with Sauteed Zucchini

I have had this recipe in my recipe book for ages. AGES!! I seriously think it was one of the first recipes I ever added to it. But, for some reason, I always forget about ravioli. Tortellini for that matter too.

Maybe it's because they're usually hiding in the freezer section?

Or maybe because my first job was at a LaGondola Spaghetti House and my most hated job was the spaghetti/ravioli station and so I have forever banned those two foods from every entering my menu planning mind?

I shall ponder this conundrum more later.

(Also, I can not even believe they have a website for LaGondola!!!! They didn't even take credit cards when I worked there 13 years ago! I still insist on eating from there every time we are back in Illinois!!! Love it!)

For now though, I need to share this recipe with you because it so flipping easy to make and was so so so good.

The ingredients:

1 lb. cheese ravioli (fresh or frozen); 2 Tbsp. olive oil; 3 small zucchini, sliced into thin half moons; Kosher salt and pepper; 2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced; 1/2 C. Parmesan cheese. Start boiling the water for the ravioli.

Start by cutting your zucchini in half.
Then thinly slice the halves. I find zucchini to be one of the prettiest vegetables, don't you? Yes, I know that's a weird thing to say. Shush.
Heat the oil in a medium skillet. Once the oil is hot, add the sliced zucchini...
1/2 tsp. of salt...
and some pepper. Sautee for 4-5 minutes.
Thinly slice those garlic cloves and add it to the zucchini, sautee-ing it for a couple of minutes.
Now, you by no means need to have to do this, but I decided to warm up some marinara sauce. Evan gets nervous when I serve pasta and there is no red sauce for him to drench the pasta in, so I just warmed up a little to drizzle on if so desired.
Oh my, look at this fabulous zucchini!!! I love zucchini. I should buy it more and add it to all my meals.
Once your water is boiling, toss in the ravioli. It should take about 5 minutes. Here's a secret I learned from working at LaGondola as a 16 year old youth--you know when ravioli is done cooking when it floats to the top. Once they're all floating, take them off the heat. If you leave them on too long after they've cooked, they start to get super soft and will fall apart. That's icky.

Pour the drained ravioli into a bowl and add the sauteed zucchini on top.
Add 1/4 C. of the cheese and stir it all together. Then, once you've gently stirred it all, add the other 1/4 C. of the cheese on top and serve.
Viola! Oh my goodness this meal was soooooo good.
I did add a little of marinara sauce to it for a few bites, but I honestly liked it better without the sauce and Evan even agreed with me. I totally fell out of my seat and broke my brain when he admitted that a pasta dish could be good without a red sauce. Miracles do happen.
The next time I make this dish (which will be soon because all of us liked it and that makes me happy), I shall probably add sauteed mushrooms to it as well.

But, you all know I have an enormous mushroom problem, so I'm sure you're not surprised.

Enjoy!