My father’s mother was the queen of the canned foods—she didn’t do much cooking. A big treat at her house was made by Chef Boyardee. My father used to comment that my mother didn’t buy normal food, but she bought ‘weird stuff,’ like flour, oil and sugar. I grew up thinking that special food came from cans, too, but I didn’t like the fact that you needed a can per meal. After you finished the can, the ravioli or spaghetios were gone. It just isn’t economical to spend all your grocery money on ready made canned food. It’s much cheaper to fill your pantry with ‘weird stuff’, too.

I would call this a pantry dish, because it was easily prepared with ingredients we had on hand. My son doesn’t like ricotta or cottage cheese, so we used tofu, which we just happened to have on hand, along with grated parmesan cheese. It takes quite a bit longer to cook than a can, but it makes up for the time in taste and nutrition. It’s a good opportunity to cook with your kids. My three little kids loved making the raviolis, and my oldest daughter made the dough and the filling. It’s also a meat free dish that our whole family enjoyed. Try it, they’ll love it!

Pasta ingredients:

• 2 ½ cups flour
• 1 cup hot water
• ¼ cup oil
• a pinch of salt
• filling ingredients
• tofu
• 1 egg
• ½ cup parmesan cheese
• ½ cup mozzarella cheese
• 1 T basil
• garlic salt to taste

Sauce ingredients:

• 1 14 oz can of tomato sauce
• 1 14 oz can of chopped tomatoes
• ¼ cup olive oil
• ¼ cup chopped onions
• basil
• salt

For the pasta:

Combine the flour and salt. Heat up one cup of water. Pour ¼ cup of oil on top of the water. Slowly pour the wet ingredients into the dry. Mix until you have a stiff dough. If it’s sticky, add more flour until it’s not. Set aside. Prepare filling.

Filling:

Crumble the tofu to make it the texture of ricotta cheese. Stir in the remaining ingredients. Set aside.

Make the dough into small balls the size of a quarter. Roll a ball of dough until it is practically a transparent flat circle. Place a tsp of the filling in the center. Fold the top half over the bottom half and crimp the edges with a fork, or press the edges down with your own fingers. Repeat until you’ve used all the filling. If you have leftover dough, it may be frozen for later use.

Drop each ravioli into boiling water for 2 minutes. Remove the ravioli from the water and set on a plate to rest while you make the sauce.

Sauce: Heat olive oil in pan. Add onions, and cook until translucent. Pour in the canned tomatoes and sauce. Stir and shake in some basil and salt to taste. Stir and heat until warmed through. Put the ravioli in the sauce and gently toss. Sprinkle parmesan cheese over the top and serve hot.

Enjoy!