My four cheese ravioli (home made lazy edition)

I work late sometimes and eat only when I'm back home. So occasionally, I stock the larder with things that I can whip up in short order for dinner. Usually it will be just pasta because they're easily available and probably next most convenient to instant noodles to prepare. I prefer the soft pasta in vacuum packs because they cook faster than the common dried ones. Also they're probably the next best to the freshly made ones. This will of course limit what you can buy or where you can buy them. Buitoni which I'm using can be found in Marketplace or selected Cold Storage supermarkets. As the title of this post suggests, it has four cheese stuffings.


The sauce that I use is the tomato and mascarpone which I discovered at Marks & Spencers. The tomato flavour in this sauce is more subdued than the standard jarred variety because of the mascarpone. Which fine by me since I'm usually not big on tomato base sauces. Unless they're fresh and well made. Most of the time they aren't great. That's my reason for avoiding them. I don't dislike tomatoes. Although the label on the bottle says that it's perfect for creamy pasta, the sauce is really not that creamy. Appearances can be deceiving.


The first step would of course to bring a pot of water with a bit of salt and oil to boil. When the water starts boiling, you can add in the pasta. These raviolis are recommended by the instructions to be cooked for about 6 minutes or so but I did them in a bit lesser time. I don't like them too soft and soggy.

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The raviolis will expand a bit as they soak in the boiling water.


The next step is optional but I like them firm so the raviolis take a bath in a bowl of ice water. Having done this, the sauce that is to be used should be heated. Since the pasta is no longer hot, it is important for the sauce to be so unless you like everything cold. What I do is to just heat a portion which is about 2/3 of the jar in the microwave for about 2 minutes for about 2/3 of the pack of raviolis.


Add any garnishing that you fancy and there goes a pasta dinner that can be done in about 20 minutes with minimal cooking skills involved. You probably would have to estimate the cooking time for the pasta if you're picky about the consistency like I am. It should be easy after a couple of tries.