Hello!
This year’s garden sure has kept me busy. I spent last Sunday shelling lima beans till my fingers hurt. Next weekend I will be back in the green beans, and yes, tomatoes. The beets and carrots are going to have to wait a bit, but they will be fine.
Even with all the garden busy work, I still have the need to cook, and of course, it has to be good old fashioned comfort food. It feels like my reward for hard work, and I’m okay with that.
I first introduced myself to this tasty little dish many years ago when it caught my eye in an old local cookbook. I had never heard of it and Mom didn’t either, she never made a pasta dish unless you consider her homemade noodles a pasta dish. My brothers and I couldn’t get enough of her noodles. She would complain occasionally at the Sunday dinner table, saying it seemed all she made was beef and noodles or chicken and noodles. Of course I spoke up to tell her none of us were complaining about that at all. She smiled and the clicking of the spoons and the conversation continued.
This dish is a pasta dish, and my son loves pasta, so I had to try it. He loved it so much it kind of become a staple in our house. I made different variations over the years, like instead of using ricotta cheese which is very expensive, I used cottage cheese. I just ran it through the blender to make it smooth. It’s the same flavor and the only thing to using cottage cheese is that it tends to make the filling in this recipe a little grainy. Nothing harsh, just enough that I noticed. But I did this from time to time depending on how the household budget was for the week.
This recipe can become the main dish for a meal or a side dish. Depending on what you want to do with it. I sometimes added a pound to cooked hamburger to the spaghetti sauce to make it a main meal, or I just used the spaghetti sauce and kept it as a side dish.
I like to use spaghetti sauce that has a fresh taste to it. I like the Prego with the garden vegetables when I run out of my home canned version, or when I’m feeling ambitious I will open up some fresh canned tomatoes and make a batch of spaghetti sauce from scratch, that entirely depends on how much time I have to do that.
This version of manicotti is different. You make your own noodles, and they have a different consistency of the store bought kind. I do like this version better. It calls for staples that I typically have in my kitchen, so I don’t have to remember to buy manicotti, I just make my own. It’s going to depend on how much time you have to invest in this dish, if you need to do something quicker, you can still make this recipe, just not the crepe noodles.
You can keep this recipe simple, or you can dress it up a bit. For example, I sometimes add fresh spinach or mushroom to the filling or just right on top, then cover it with some cheese. Anyway, you want to get creative with this recipe, you will find this one to be “Sunday Dinner table worthy.”
Homemade Manicotti
Ingredients:
1 ½ cups flour
1 cup whole milk
3 large eggs
½ teaspoon salt
Filling:
1 ½ pound of ricotta cheese
¼ cup Romano cheese
1 large egg
1 tablespoon minced fresh parsley or 1 teaspoon dried parsley flakes
1 jar (26 ounces) spaghetti sauce
Grated Romano cheese, optional
Directions:
1. Place flour in a bowl, whisk in milk, eggs and salt until smooth. Heat a lightly greased 8-inch skillet. Pour about 2 Tablespoons batter into center of skillet. Spread into a 5-inch circle. Cook over medium heat until set. Do not brown or turn. Repeat with remaining batter making 18 crepes. Stack Crepes with waxed paper in between, set aside
2. For filling, combine ricotta and Romano cheese, egg and parsley. Spoon 3-4 tablespoons down the center of each crepe, roll up. Pour half of the spaghetti sauce into an ungreased 13×9 inch baking dish. Place crepes, seam side down, over sauce and pour remaining sauce over the top.
3. Cover and bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. Uncover and bake 20 minutes longer or until heated thru. Sprinkle with Romano cheese if desired.
