the south is known for its love of deep fried food.  fact…at the salad bar in the grocery store the side opposite salad ingredients is all a variety of fried foods and condiments to go with those foods.  shocking for me when i had a sudden craving for toasted ravioli and couldn’t find any fried pasta around.  i searched every pizza/italian restaurant menu i could find along with checking at the grocery store in the frozen section.  i became suspicious they don’t have toasted ravioli.  to confirm this i asked a born and raised knoxvillian about toasted ravioli, the response……what’s that?

meatless monday then became a challenge of making toasted ravioli.  first issue how to cook the frozen cheese ravs but not boil them so they could cook longer as they fried.  solution i rinsed them off in HOT i mean HOT water till they got thawed and got soft.  then came the basics for breading and frying, eggs and italian bread crumbs.

the assembly line

to tell when a ravioli is cooked, if you are boiling them, it  is when they float.  frying them is much the same thing i noticed, instead of floating they sort of puff out forming little toasted pillows. plus they are all golden brown.

fry away

these sort of cooking adventures can turn out wonderful or be huge messy disasters.  this one was the first. i heated up some paul newman’s tomato and basil for a dipping sauce sprinkled the whole shabang with parm and a little oregano/basil mix and enjoyed a midwestern treat.