For awhile, I’ve really been wanting to give a Sandra Lee recipe a run thru.
But I am also a cheap *******. I don’t want to spend $20 on something that I
suspect will be inedible. But the recipes fascinate me, since they're usually
done so badly. As a tech writer, I have a high respect for a well constructed
recipe... since it's basically tech writing with food. Carefully constructed
instructions that should hopefully bring you to a successful result.

Looking at the recipe, I saw problems right away. I’ve had fried/toasted
ravioli many times. Usually breaded. Once, not breaded. And it made for some
horribly tough pasta. Not tasty. And hers are of the “unbreaded” variety. But,
it is a recipe that surprisingly (for her) relies on some standard pantry
staples and wouldn’t require me to go on a hunting trip for high-priced
ingredients that I’d never use in anything else.

But look!! Giada also has a recipe for fried ravioli, and this one has
breading. And unsurprisingly, relies on pantry staples, as most of her recipes
do. Bring it on!!

On to the showdown. First up, the sauces.

I at least made the sauces first. Only variation from the recipe was that
rather than roma tomatoes, I used some cherry tomatoes. My cherry tomato plant
is still going strong, and I'm not about to spend money on tomatoes when I've
got them right in the backyard. Since the ravioli that I got looked even
smaller than the ones Aunt Sandy used, I diced up the pepper and tomato up as
small as I could, already suspecting that there are problems in serving a
chunky sauce with these teeny little ravioli. Due to trying to get the teeny
dice, it took about 7 minutes to get this done. Listed prep time on the Food
Network site is 10 minutes. Ok... well, I'm willing to admit if I wasn't going
for such a small dice, I might have gotten it all done in 5. But the problem
now... I don't have multiple sets of the measuring spoons I need to make the
next dip. Unless I think that a little balsamic vinegar and brown sugar will
add something to the artichoke sauce (which I don't) I now need to clean those
spoons. Damnit. I hate doing dishes. Ok, I claim those two minutes back in
prep time, which brings us back to 7 minutes.

The taste? Not *that* bad. It might not be a bad relish for chicken or fish or
something. But I do not see how the hell it's a "dip-able" sauce.

On to the other Sandy sauce.

I was originally going to use just canned artichokes in the sauce, since I'm
not a fan of the jarred/marinated ones. But, going thru my fridge yesterday, I
found a half-full jar of artichokes. Ok, looks like jarred artichokes. Again,
working for as fine of a chop on the artichokes as I can, and the rest of the
sauce came together quickly enough. Five minutes. So, all in all, 12 minutes
prep time.

The taste? Like a really nasty artichoke dip. A really nasty, thin artichoke
dip. It's almost like the artichokes, which were well-drained, had some bad
chemical reaction with the (reduced fat) sour cream and mayo and thinned
everything out. And that marinated taste of the artichokes is all you can
taste. Not like actual artichokes, just, well, nasty.

The Giada recipe? A half-full jar of Prego leftover from the Lightened Chicken
Parmesan (AmericasTestKitchen.com) that I made earlier in the week. Prep time?
Zip. Ok, a minute in the microwave to take the chill off. But, prepping the
ravioli with the breading took about 5 minutes.

The taste? It's Prego, people!! Many times in college, my dinner was some nice
french bread and the better part of a jar of Prego. Personally, it's my
favorite jarred sauce, so of course, it tasted good.

Looks like the Prep/Sauce round goes to Giada. Especially since I didn't have
to re-wash anything during it.

And a word about the ravioli.... for either recipe, you'd end up tossing some
from the package anyway where they've stuck together, and they rip when you
try to get them apart. I think I lost about 10... maybe 1/3 of the package.
Thrifty!!

But wait.... apparently the prep time includes bringing your fry oil to temp.
The Sandy recipe is 10 minutes. Giada's is 15. Does oil somehow heat faster
when it knows you're doing Sandy's recipe? Does oil just come to temp faster
in a Semi-Ho kitchen?? The hell???

In any case... it took about 15 minutes for my oil to come to temp. On to the
fry!!!

Nothing notable about the differences in frying. Drop stuff in hot oil, watch
it cook, flip it, watch it cook some more.

Alone, the Semi-Ho ravioli were pretty good. The pasta did not get tough as I
thought it might. Crispy, warm center.

The Giada ravioli were also good, I personally liked the breadcrumbs more,
since they added a little more texture, and they did a better job of covering
all the places the pasta dough had created huge bubbles that made the Semi-Ho
ones look kinda like radioactive mutated ravioli.

As for the sauces.... c'mon......

The red pepper sauce, all you could taste was sweet.

The artichoke sauce, all you could taste was something tart, and not in a good
way.

For both of them, it was a huge problem that to get any sauce on the ravioli,
you just had to go with a huge amount compared to the size of the ravioli.
Which might be one reason the dips were so overpowering. At least with the
tomato sauce, a little dip in to the sauce was perfect. No need to go in there
and scoop away, and you could actually taste the ravioli.

Couldn't get MrNutt to try ANY of them. He's not a ravioli fan in the first
place, and he's saving his hunger for a couple bowls of chili tonight.

For photo documentation of the experience:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/3568485...7601927415152/