Who could not love the California Grill, the views alone are worth the trip.

California Grill is just a great restuarant with great food. I wanted to make the ravioli appetizer. It’s just so simple and good. When I was making it, I was trying to make it more into a meal then an appetizer. I decided to make two raviolis the serving size for our meal. My first attempt, did not come out as expected. I had to make some substitions for the normal recipe, because of availability in the store

Here’s our final result. Even with our substitutions, it was still wonderful!

Here’s what we used:

Tomatoes, blue cheese, feta cheese, riccota cheese, panko breadcrumbs, basil, roasted garlic, mushrooms, red onion, olive oil, wonton wrappers, salt, coarse pepper and an egg.

First put the cored tomatoes with skins still on, in the oven at 400 degrees farenheit. Baking time will vary with the size of the tomatoes. My tomatoes were a mixture of small and medium sized. It took about 25 minutes for them to soften and have the skins crack. You want it to look a little dehydrated. This allows for the skins to come right off once they have cooled.

Once the tomatoes have cooled, pull the skin off. Put the meaty part in a blender or food processor. Puree the roasted tomatoes. We added a little bit of blue cheese.

Now we are going to make some pesto for our cheese mixture. I finely diced basil and added it to olive oil with a little salt.

Let’s put our cheese mixture together. We added together 1 1/2 cups of ricotta cheese, 12oz block of feta cheese crumbled, 1 cup a harder goat cheese shredded, 2 TB pesto, a few cloves of roasted garlic and coarse pepper to taste. Use your hands to mix the ingredients to get them really incorporated.

First beat an egg. Brush each wonton wrapper with egg. Scoop cheese mixture into the center of the wonton wrapper. Cover the cheese mixture with another wonton making sure all air escapes as you press the top wonton.

Let’s finish the sauce and start the garnish. Begin by slicing some mushrooms and red onion. These two get sauteed in a bit of oil until they are browned. After pureering the mixture, I transferred it to a saucepan to simmer until everything else is ready to be plated. With California Grill’s recipe, I know they strain the tomato to get only the liquid. I skipped this step hoping for a little more hardy meal. I also grated some of the hard goat cheese, and picked some greens from the garden. The recipe calls for micro greens, but I couldn’t find any at the store and didn’t grow any this year. I just used the smallest leaves of the lettuce I was growning.

I boiled two ravioli at time. They only took a few minutes to cook. I transferred them to a plate. I added the tomato sauce and then dizzled with olive oil. I sprinkled with the shredded goat cheese. I topped with the sauteed mushroom and onion. Placing the greens on top.

Here’s to a beautiful and tasty meal!!! Although, it wasn’t excalty like California Grill’s dish, we loved our meal and plan on making it this way in the future.