Sweet Potato Ravioli with Lemon-Sage Browned Butter

With fall finally upon us (okay people, in Vegas anything under 85 degrees is fall) here is a totally delicious recipe just right for cooler weather.

Don't worry, it's really easy and it's even good for you! (I got the recipe from the October issue of Cooking Light)

I cooked the sweet potato in the microwave the night before I made this dish. I also used a white sweet potato but it would have looked better with an orange one (labeled 'yams' in the supermarket).

I served it with cider braised greens and ham for a gourmet but still healthy and delicious twist on soul food. Enjoy!


Ingredients
1 (1-pound) sweet potato
2 tablespoons grated fresh Parmesan cheese
1/2 teaspoon salt, divided
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
24 wonton wrappers
1 large egg white, lightly beaten
6 quarts water
3 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon chopped fresh sage
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Preparation

Preheat oven to 400°.
Pierce potato several times with a fork; place on a foil-lined baking sheet. Bake at 400° for 40 minutes or until tender. Cool. (This is where I just microwaved) Peel potato; mash. Combine potato, cheese, 1/4 teaspoon salt and nutmeg in a small bowl.
Working with 1 wonton wrapper at a time (cover remaining wrappers with a damp towel to keep them from drying), spoon 1 tablespoon potato mixture into center of each wrapper. Brush edges of dough with egg white; bring 2 opposite corners to center. Press edges together to seal, forming a triangle. Repeat procedure with remaining wonton wrappers, potato filling, and egg white.
Bring 6 quarts water to a boil. Add 8 ravioli; cook 2 minutes or until done. Remove ravioli from pan with a slotted spoon. Lightly coat cooked wontons with cooking spray; keep warm. Repeat procedure with remaining ravioli.
Melt butter in a small skillet over high heat. Add chopped sage to pan; cook 1 minute or until butter is lightly browned. Stir in remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt, juice, and pepper. Drizzle butter mixture over ravioli.

Sitcoms Aren't Dead, They're Just Playing Possum

The sitcom isn’t dead; it’s just in a cryogenic sleep. Everyone wants to pronounce it dead, stand over it's corpse, saying that people don’t want to watch sitcoms any more, but they are wrong. People don’t want to watch unfunny sitcoms any more. People would LOVE to watch sitcoms again, if they are truly funny.
Think I’m wrong? Okay, smarty pants, why are the number one rated syndicated shows all sitcom re-runs? Because people want to laugh. That’s why more people are getting their news from “The Daily Show with John Stewart”…it’s much funnier than “World News Tonight”. The most watched videos ion YouTube aren’t dramas. Lots of blockbuster movies are comedies. People flocked to see “Wedding Crashers” and “40 Year Old Virgin” because comedy, when it’s done well, is a gift. It uplifts you, takes you away from your problems and gives you a joke to tell around the water cooler the next day.
The reasons sitcoms are sleeping are many. Cheaper to produce reality TV, network executives too timid to give a show time to develop (ever watch the first season of “Friends”? It was terrible. I only watched the credits so I could hear the catchy song. But it hung on and became a great show), and a dearth of original thinking. The last one is the killer. Yes, sitcoms are, and should be to a slight extent, formulaic. I said formulaic, not clone copies. Today, if a sitcom does become successful, it’s duplicated so many times that the dead horse isn’t just beaten but completely pulverized. The truly great and memorable sitcoms were both formulaic and original at the same time.
Is there nothing original out there? Sure there is. The BBC puts out plenty of successful comedies, which we try unsuccessfully to copy here. And there are literally TONS of writers out there with ideas (Contact me if you want some scripts and I know a lot more writers with shows as well.). Some may not be great, but I bet if you pan through enough, you’ll strike gold. And we need it. It’s a pretty unfunny time right now, with the war, the economy and elections coming up. So we need sitcoms to help us through a rough time. NBC has only one new sitcom in it’s 2007-2008 season lineup. It’s not enough. We need the funny stuff and we need it now!