A Delicious Surprise!

Bigger news than my crockpot meal for the night is the 3 packages I arrived home to on my front porch! A couple weeks ago I started a conversation with my Uncle about bread....and lo and behold, supplies started arriving at my door!!

In addition to the pizza stone and peel (look at me learning the terms so quickly!), I received SAF Red Instant Yeast (something I've eyed on other blogs!), 2 bread books, some sourdough starter, large containers to store dough in, and a yeast canister and measure! I am fully stocked and ready to begin a new journey through breads!!!

I started by making the basic dough recipe from the book "Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day."  Ive been waiting and waiting for it to rise so I can enjoy it with my dinner tonight!!

So, on to the dinner! Tonights crockpot dinner was Ravioli Casserole from MomsWhoThink.com. While I made several substitutions in the recipe, I immediately knew that I could make something much fresher tasting than what this recipe amounted to. So, the recipe that follows is the same concept (pasta sauce, pasta, meat, ricotta, spinach), but how I will make it in the future....and I WILL make it in the future!!

Crockpot Ravioli Casserole

Ingredients

6 containers grape tomatoes, rinsed

2 heads garlic, seperated and peeled

10 basil leaves, coarsly chopped

4 tbs olive oil

1/2 cup chicken broth

1 lb ground turkey (you can use chicken or beef as well), browned

1 15oz container ricotta cheese

1 10oz frozen spinach, thawed and squeezed of all moisture

4 handfuls dry pasta (any shape)

Directions

1. Combine the first 5 ingredients in a slow cooker

2. Cook on low for 6 hours, or until tomatoes start to burst and garlic becomes soft

3. Using a blender or imersion blender, puree the sauce. Return to Crockpot

4. Boil the pasta to al dente

5. Add the pasta, meat, spinach and ricotta to the sauce. Stir

6. Simmer another 20 minutes on low in the crockpot.

This is some of the best bread I've ever had, and can't wait to make variations of the basic dough!! The kit that I received came with some vietnamese cinnamon that smells better than any holiday I've experienced. I want to try cinnamon sugar pretzels sometime in the next week!