Ravioli Soup

The other day my grandma got me a dutch oven while we were out at Home Goods. I was really excited because a lot of the recipes I've been wanting to try out have called for a dutch oven to be used. Now, I have no idea why a dutch oven is different from another pot, I guess I could look it up, but I wanted one anyway. So I finally have a dutch oven and I came across the Ravioli Soup recipe in one of the cookbooks my grandma gave me. I thought it sounded really good, and made plans to make it the next day! I will now share the recipe with you!


Ingredients:


1 pound ground beef
2 cups water
2 cans (one 28 ounces, one 14-1/2 ounces) crushed tomatoes
1 can (6 ounces) tomato paste
1-1/2 cups chopped onion
1/4 cup minced fresh parsley
2 garlic cloves, minced
3/4 teaspoon dried basil
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon onion salt
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
1 package (9 ounces) refrigerated cheese ravioli
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese





First you want to brown the pound of beef in the dutch oven over medium heat. You could probably use more beef depending on how meaty you want your soup to be.





Just make sure you get all nice and brown, and there is no more pink!





Then you add the water, tomatoes, tomato paste, onion, parsley, garlic and seasonings. I didn't use onion because Kevin and I aren't huge fans of onion and I haven't worked with it too much. I've seen that you can cook up the onions, take them out and then cook your beef and add them back in later so they're already cooked and don't stay so hard. I'll have to try that some time, but for this instance, I left it out!





Bring the soup to a boil.






Turn the heat down, cover, and let simmer for 30 minutes.





Meanwhile, cook the ravioli based on the directions on the package. I got frozen ravioli and I put the whole package in so there was a lot more ravioli than called for, but it's so yummy, so who cares!?





Drain pasta.





Once the soup is finished simmering, stir in the ravioli and heat through.





Stir in the cheese.





Serve immediately! I topped the soup with a bit more cheese.





I've had a lot of fun cooking this soup and it was quite tasty! Let me know if you have any tips in making this soup even better!


~Taylor~