Toasted Ravioli (Midwest, especially St. Louis)

As I embark on another weekend as a football widow (the Mister is off to L.A. for another USC game--Go Trojans), I can't help but make big plans for how I'm going to enjoy my big ol' house all by myself.  Wedded bliss is wonderful, but there is nothing like having a remote control of one's own.  For my husband, it's more of a Long John Silver's value meal of one's own.  I've discovered that when I'm out of town my husband eats every disgusting, deep-fried, heavily hydrogenated food he can find in the metro area.  So, I'm taking a cue from his playbook and making toasted ravioli for dinner tonight.  No vegetables, no lean proteins and no concern for the arteries.  It's a ladies weekend of one at the homestead!

I first discovered toasted ravioli in college at the University of Missouri (go Tigers!).  As an avid diner at the many residential halls, I noticed that on toasted ravioli days, lines would snake outside the cafeteria into stairwells and beyond.  St. Louis natives would scoff when out-of-towners like me would ask, "What's toasted ravioli; is it good?"  In a city with so few claims to anything, let alone culinary fame, St. Louis is deeply proud of taking a carb-loaded food and enhancing it through frying.  St. Louis' Italian section, The Hill, boasts that it gave birth to toasted ravioli, although other food historians suggest it is a take off a sweeter filled ravioli from Sicily.  Regardless of its origins, every Italian restaurant in St. Louis from little corner dives to the old school-red banquette-Connie Francis-Frank Sinatra-style places to trendy, Italian fusion places offer it as an appetizer.  

Toasted ravioli is often prepared with either a meat or cheese filling.  The light coating of bread crumbs helps flavor the pasta.  You can make toasted ravioli at home using a bag of frozen raviolis.  No need to make fresh pasta for this kind of dish.  Just dip the ravioli in a little beaten egg, then some flavored bread crumbs and finely chopped parsley.  Then, fry it up in some vegetable oil.  The crunch of the pasta is a nice contrast to the soft ricotta cheese filling.  I'm not a huge fan of the meat kinds, yet to each her own.  Serve your toasted ravioli with a nice marinara sauce.  If you want to add some more flavor to a prepared sauce, roast up a few seeded red peppers in the oven (slow roast at 200 degrees for a few hours; fast roast at 450 degrees for about 45 minutes).  Then remove the skins and put in a food processor.  Blend with the marinara sauce and enjoy.  In honor of having the place to myself this weekend, I won't push a healthy alternative to this recipe.  There really is none.  You can try to make this recipe in the oven, but to get a real crispness on the ravioli, you have to cover them in a little olive oil or butter.  So, why not fry?

So, as my husband battles Southern California's notoriously horrible traffic, I will be dining on my version of junk food and watching all the HGTV I want.

Happy Eating!