Carb Overload

Yesterday I had the urge to grill ravioli. It's served fried, so why not grilled? I googled it, and sure enough, it had been done before ... I needed no further encouragement!

Not wanting to keep this interesting experiment to myself, I put out a call on Facebook - "who wants to come partake of my experiment with us?"

Dinner guests procured, I decided to add in another culinary experiment or two: potato rosemary pizza and glazed carrots, both of which I'd been wanting to try for a while.

All three were a raving success! And here's the great thing, you can do all of the prep for these ahead of time, leaving just the baking for dinner time.

First, the pizza: I used this recipe from Shutterbean. Variations were that I used whatever potatoes I had on hand (russet), dried rosemary (and I added it to the oil a few hours ahead of time), and I used half whole wheat for the crust. HH liked the crust so much, he thinks it should now be my standard pizza crust (which is great, except I need to figure out how to make it outside so I don't have a 500 degree oven on all summer). Also, I somehow ended up with way more potato mixture than worked on the crust, so we're having it again tonight with the second half of the dough.

Now the carrots: I used this recipe from Serious Eats, only modifying it by adding a pinch of thyme to the glaze as I was preparing it, and I used 1/4 cup orange juice instead of juicing an orange. I took whole, full-sized carrots and peeled them and sliced them in half length-wise. They cooked over medium-high heat for the same length of time as the ravioli. Surprisingly tasty!

And, finally, the inspiration for it all, the ravioli: I used the frozen spinach-mozzarella ravioli that Costco sells, which comes with a little packet of italian seasoning and finely grated parmesan cheese. I cooked the ravioli earlier in the day, drained them, made sure they weren't sticking to each other and put them in the fridge. When it was time to cook them, I tossed them with some olive oil and the cheese/seasoning packet. I wasn't sure about the cheese at first, but it turned out to be key - it crisped up really nicely on the grill. I spread them out, again over medium-high heat, and cooked them until one side had nice char marks on it. Then I flipped them and cooked until they were crispy on the other side.

They had a really nice flavor and texture! They were a little tough to eat with a fork, or even a fork and knife, so I think I might do these as appetizers/finger food in the future.

As a bonus, our guests brought pears, tossed in a fantastic butter/brown sugar/cinnamon sauce, to grill for dessert. Served with ice cream, with more of that sauce on top -- holy cow, they were amazing!