Inspired by my mom’s insane pantry, I decided to put myself to the challenge.  I didn’t want to get take out, so I decided that I needed to use up some items in my own pantry.  Now, let’s face the facts, I don’t go to the grocery store to “stock up on staples.” I am a buy what I need for that recipe kind of shopper, so I don’t typically have much of a pantry stash.  So this was really going to be a challenge for me.  I did know that on my last several grocery trips, I bought one of these and one of that.

Here’s what I had to work with:

1. One bag of frozen ravioli
2. One 1/4 full jar of Rao’s pasta sauce
3. One can of fire roasted tomatoes
4. One can of tomato paste
5. One box of spinach
6. A little heavy cream (not pictured)
7. Spices (not pictured)

There wasn’t enough pasta sauce to for the ravioli, so I knew I was going to need to improvise.  This is something I do on the regular.  So I cooked the pasta according to package instructions.  Removed the pasta without dumping all the water so I could boil my frozen spinach. Drained the spinach, and added the pasta sauce, tomatoes, about 1/4 cup of heavy cream, about 1 tbsp of the tomato paste and drained spinach back to the pot.  I added a little salt and pepper and a touch of Penzey’s Old World Spice.  I let that boil away to reduce a little.

After about 10 minutes, I topped the cooked ravioli with the pantry sauce and a little shredded cheese and Viola!  Dinner.  Way better than take out, and I saved myself a little cash. Well Done!