2008 March 02 — dinner with Juliedinner with Julie » 2008 » March

Archive for March 2nd, 2008

Day 62: Ravioli “Lasagna” & Chocolate Zucchini Cake

I suppose at least my current crazy schedule is making this project more interesting. Or more dull?

Today I taught a homemade pasta class at the Cookbook Company with Lina deGaeta, master pasta-maker and the wife of the owner of the Italian Supermarket on the corner of Edmonton Trail and 20th Ave NE. (Who makes, by the way, the best pizza in Calgary - Saturday afternoons only they fire up the wood-burning oven and you can order pizza any way you like it, with real Italian ingredients and chewy, bulbous crusts.)

Tonight though, my call time to the set of It’s Just Food is 10:30pm, and we’re going to shoot all night. So I had a bit of a nap, and then, technically, it was dinnertime. Because I was assembling a sort of “lasagna” made out of fresh ravioli as a beauty shot for the show, I assembled another small one for Mike and W. (I got the idea from a cookbook put out by Real Simple magazine.)

I ate a wedge of frozen chocolate zucchini cake. That counts as dinner, right? After all, it does contain a vegetable, and was made with canola oil - a healthy fat.

Ravioli Lasagna

This is as fast and easy as it gets. The ravioli is already filled, so you don’t need to layer your noodles with filling. Also great when cooking for one – you can make individual sized lasagnas, which isn’t possible when using pasta sheets or lasagna noodles.

If you like, use any kind of cooked veg as well as or in place of the spinach – a container of roasted tomatoes, peppers, zucchini and eggplant from the Italian market works especially well.

1 large jar good-quality tomato sauce
2 16-18 oz. bags fresh or frozen large ravioli - any kind
1 pkg. frozen chopped spinach, thawed
1 cup grated part-skim mozzarella (or as much as you like)
½ cup grated Parmesan

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Spray a 9”x13” baking dish with nonstick spray, and spread about a third of the tomato sauce over the bottom. Lay half the ravioli in a single layer overtop. Sprinkle with the spinach and half the cheese, another third of the sauce and then the remaining ravioli, sauce and cheese. Cover with foil and bake for 20 minutes, then uncover and bake another 10 minutes, until golden and bubbly.

Serves 6.

(Low Fat) Chocolate Zucchini Cake

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup sugar
1 cup cocoa
1 ½ tsp. baking powder
1 ½ tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 ¼ cups buttermilk
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 large eggs
1/4 cup canola oil
2 tsp. vanilla
1 cup strong coffee
1 zucchini, unpeeled & grated
1/2 cup chocolate chips (optional)

Preheat oven to 350°F.

In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

Add buttermilk, brown sugar, eggs, oil and vanilla and beat for 1-2 minutes, until well blended and smooth. Stir in coffee and zucchini. The batter will be fairly thin.

Pour into a bundt pan that has been sprayed with non-stick spray. Bake for 45-50 minutes, until the top is springy to the touch.