Twist On A BLT: Bacon & Tomato Ravioli With A Salad Of Romaine, Almonds & Dried Cranberries

As we move thoroughly into fall, I decided to buy one last batch of fresh tomatoes from the farmer's market.  Given that we still have a good quantity of that wonderful Pasta Prima ravioli from Costco, I thought I would do something with that. Since we had lettuce and tomato already included in the menu, adding bacon jumped into my mind.

I cooked up some onion, garlic and crushed red pepper in EVOO.  I then added the chopped fresh tomatoes and let soften and blend in. Finally, I  added in those bacon pieces you get in the bag (real bacon, please, no substitutes) and warmed it through.  We garnished it with grated cheese and ground black pepper.

While not brilliant, we both agreed this was a very good dish and it took about as much time to make as it does for me to  do a posting on it.  The crushed red pepper gave some background heat and using the last of the farmer's market tomatoes gave it a fresh flavor.  We will definitely make this again: quick, easy, tasty and affordable is a hard combination to beat.

To go along with the theme of BLT, we had a romaine lettuce salad. The dried cranberries (craisins) are on sale this month at Costco with a coupon so three pounds of them cost 3.99, a real bargain.  We finished the salad with those crunch sliced almonds you get at Costco and it made for a wonderful salad that was pretty also.

I am sure we will find lots of good uses for those craisins. Aside from being affordable, they are colorful, tasty and good for you.  I highly recommend buying a bag before the sale is over.

For wine, we had the Ecco Domani Pinot Grigio 2008 that was given a solid rating Costco Wine Blog.  While not the best Pinot Grigio ever, at less than $8 a bottle it is a very good value. This someone sweet wine went well with the freshness of the tomato and my wife and I both agreed with the review that it was easy to drink and enjoy with this dinner.

To sum this up, the concept of Bacon, Lettuce and Tomato being used together has been around for a long time, but this shows there are still ways to innovate and put new spins on the idea.