Baked Sausage and Spinach Ravioli with Fresh Tomato-Spinach Pesto

     Today we have an interesting and delicious variation on ravioli and pesto sauce. The sauce is a pesto made from fresh cherry tomatoes and spinach while the hot Italian sausage and spinach ravioli are made in won ton wrappers and baked for crispness. The flavor is uniquely delicious and a little spicy which can be adjusted by changing the amount of red pepper flakes.
     This dish can be served as a dinner with a side Caesar salad, as the pasta course in a full Italian dinner or as stand alone appetizers or hors d'oeuvres at a party. They can be eaten with a knife and fork or one's fingers. Versatility and a flavor are the way to describe them. Their crunchy goodness is delightful.

The recipe makes fourteen of the ravioli and at least twice as much delicious pesto sauce as is needed for the dish. So the sauce quantities could be halved. We chose to make this amount and reserve the excess for another night.


Serves:                               2
Prep Time:
     The Sauce                    10 minutes or less
     The Ravioli                    30 minutes or so
Cooking Time:
     The Sauce                    No cooking required; just warm slightly or                                                                                               place directly on warmed dinner plates
     The Ravioli                   10 to 11 minutes in the oven
     
INGREDIENTS
     The Sauce
1 cup of fresh cherry tomatoes, washed and well dried
1 tablespoon of tomato paste
1/4 cup of pan-roasted slivered almonds
1/4 cup of Parmesan cheese
1/4 cup of extra virgin olive oil
1 1/2 - 2 ounces of fresh baby spinach
3 to 4 cloves garlic, skinned
1 pinch kosher salt
1 pinch fresh ground black pepper
1 pinch of red pepper flakes     
     The Ravioli
6 ounces of hot Italian sausage, skinned and crumbled into pan
28 Won Ton wraps, usually found around the produce section
4 ounces Fontina cheese, grated
4 ounces fresh baby spinach
3 medium mushrooms, chopped small; we used some re-hydrated Morels from the pantry
3 green onions, sliced into 1/4 inch sections
3 cloves garlic, chopped fine
2 to 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 medium egg, beaten
1 pinch of kosher salt
1 pinch of fresh ground black pepper

PREPARATION
      The Sauce
1. Place all of the ingredients into a blender (we used a small Ninja).
2. Blend thoroughly. If too dry, add more olive oil until you reach the consistency you want.
3. Reserve in the refrigerator for at least one hour to blend flavors.
4. Bring up to room temperature before serving on warmed plates.
     The Ravioli
1. In a 10 inch pan, saute the unwrapped sausage in 1 tablespoon olive oil over medium heat until browned, crumbling into small bits with a spatula while cooking. Reserve the cooked sausage in a medium bowl in which the ravioli stuffing will be mixed.
2. Place the green onions in the heated pan and saute for a couple of minutes. Add the garlic and saute about 2 minutes more while stirring.Add a little more olive oil if the pan is too dry. Add this to the sausage in the bowl.
3. Turn the heat down to medium low and carefully add a tablespoon or so of water to the hot pan. Add the spinach, cover and cook for a few minutes, stirring occasionally, until the spinach is wilted. Let the spinach cool, chop fine and add to the mixture in the bowl.
4. Add the mushrooms, cheese, salt, pepper and red pepper flakes and mix thoroughly.
5. Lay 6 to 8 of the wraps on a lightly floured bread board. 
6. Place 1 slightly heaping tablespoon of the mixture onto each wrap.
7. Brush some of the beaten egg around the outside quarter inch of each wrap.
8. Lay another wrap on top of each filled wrap, stretch slightly to fit and press the outside edge down with your fingers until they all stay in place.
9. Take a fork and press around all the edges with the tip of the tines being careful not to cut through the top wrap.
10. Brush the top of each ravioli with the mixed egg and place them on a baking sheet, parchment paper or a lightly oiled cookie sheet and bake at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 10 to 11 minutes or until lightly browned around the edges.
11. Remove from the oven, plate and serve.

PLATING
     The plating can be simply spooning the warmed sauce over the ravioli or it can be more complicated to add a visual component to the dining experience. Anita chose to float the ravioli on stripes or smears of the sauce with fresh spinach leaves as garnish. A few red cherry tomatoes would also add a nice touch to a dining plate with perhaps a single one on an appetizer plate. Some shavings of Parmesan might look good as well as some of the pan-roasted almond slivers. 
     A really good dining experience is complex, involving all of the senses; taste, smell, touch or texture and even hearing or sound. This is the host chef's opportunity to show his or her creativity and individuality in the taste, the presentation and the overall ambiance. We hope you get a chance to try this tasty dish and enjoy it as we did.

Bon appetit,
Tom and Anita