Cheese Ravioli in Prosciutto di Parma Sauce My Way

            With a fresh batch of cheese ravioli to cook, I wanted to find a new variation of meat to go along with it instead of the usual meatballs or sausage. Taking a peek in my refrigerator, my answer was laying on the second shelf, prosciutto di parma. I purchased a quarter-pound of it sliced a few days earlier and felt this was a great opportunity to experiment. About seven or eight months ago I tried a slice of it and since then it's moved up to the top of my chart in terms of cold cuts meat. I never tried it cooked or heated before, so this was certainly traveling into uncharted waters.

             The sauce always has the most steps, so its the best place to start. Use three cans of tomato sauce with a can of paste to even out the texture. Next, pour in a few teaspoons of olive oil as well as balsamic vinegar to bring out a little sweetness. To add flavor to the sauce you can sprinkle in some garlic powder, black pepper, and crumble up a chicken bouillon cube with your fingertips. Don't put the prosciutto in just yet, the key is to keep the meat soft and tender, at this point its just about cooking up the sauce first. As that heats up for a good ten minutes, its time to move onto the pasta. The star of the show are the ravioli, so after boiling up a hot pot of water, sprinkle in a little salt, pour in a little olive oil, and dump in a couple of dozen ravioli so those can begin cooking as well.

            Remember to keep going back to the sauce every few minutes to give it a stir, otherwise it will burn at the bottom of the pot and have a clumpy surface up on top. Ravioli has a unique shape versus other pasta, this serves as a mjaor benefit because once you see them start floating up on the water's surface, you'll know they're just about done. This is the moment when you add the prosciutto. It's best to shred up the slices into tiny pieces and add it to the sauce. Stir it up for a few minutes, but only a few minutes, its important the prosciutto doesn't cook or get burned. By this time the ravioli should have been floating up top for a few minutes now, so its time to take those out of the pot by dumping them on a strainer to get all the water out. After a few minutes, everything should cool down a little, so then empty the ravioli from the strainer onto a plate, pour on a layer of the sauce with the prosciutto di parma shreds mixed in, and dig in!

            The best dishes are the ones you don't expect....

Linguini in Clam Sauce My Way

            The other day at the supermarket I was in the mood of dumping random cans into my shopping cart for no good reason, one of these cans was preserved baby clams. I continued up and down the aisles getting the other items I needed, all along keeping an eye on the can of clams and thinking what could I do with it. Then the thought came to my head, how about make linguini in clam sauce. Since I was already in the supermarket, I went to the pasta booth and picked up a package of fresh linguini.

             I had a red pepper in my refrigerator from a previous week, so to spice things up a little I decided to add that into the equation as well. I started out by boiling a pot of water, and adding a little salt, to cook the linguini. Since it was fresh pasta, it only took about twelve minutes to cook. I strained the water out and let the pasta cool off for a moment, while that happened I started to heat up the clams. I took a frying pan, greased the bottom of it with olive oil, and dumped out about half of the can of baby clams onto it. Once those started cooking, I added the linguini into the frying pan as well as poured the rest of the baby clams on top of the linguini pile. Then came the additional ingrediants such as a can of tomato sauce and the red pepper I cut into slices. I used a simple fork to mix everything up and stir the linguini in the pan. I let it cook for about ten minutes, and when I saw that the baby clam pieces were starting to stick to the bottom of the pan, I knew it was done.

            I'm happy I didn't knock a can of tuna into my shopping cart, otherwise I would have been clueless on what to do with it...