Late yesterday afternoon and last night I began receiving multiple requests from blog followers for the recipe for the cheese manicotti I talked about in yesterday’s post. This is it.
Sauce Ingredients:
- 1 1/2 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 Tbsp olive oil (or butter)
- 1 1lb can tomato puree (not tomato sauce)
- 1 6oz can tomato paste
- 2 1/4 cups water
- 1/2 tsp brown sugar
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp basil
- 1/4 tsp oregano
- 1/8 tsp tarragon
Sauté garlic lightly in oil. Add remaining ingredients and mix well. Simmer gently 1 1/2 hours (time not critical but thickness is. Add water if necessary). I often get it hot on stovetop and then “simmer” covered in oven at 225° to prevent spattering and sticking on the bottom of pan. Otherwise stir frequently to prevent sticking and use spatter screen.
Manicotti ingredients:
- Sauce (above)
- Manicotti noodles
- Lots of boiling water, lightly salted
- 1/4 lb. (or slightly more) mozzarella cheese, diced quite small (too difficult to stuff shells if pieces are too large)
- 2 beaten eggs (don’t necessarily add all the beaten eggs. Eggs come in different sizes and too much egg makes the filling too runny)
- 1 8 oz. package cream cheese
- 1 cup Ricotta cheese (or cottage cheese or a mixture, I prefer mostly or even all Ricotta). Mixture should not be too runny or too thick for filling manicotti noodles.
- 1 Tbsp chopped parsley
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/8 tsp nutmeg
- 1/2 cup Sauterne wine (or I sometimes use White Zinfandel, both are good)
- 1 small can sliced mushrooms for garnish (sometimes I use fresh)
- 1/8 tsp pepper
- Grated parmesan cheese (please use the “real stuff” if possible. Parmigiano-Reggiano can’t be beat.
Prepare sauce. Add wine to sauce just before assembling the ingredients in the baking pan.
Blend cream cheese at room temperature with fork until soft. Add Ricotta cheese, Mozzarella cheese, eggs, parsley, salt, pepper and nutmeg and blend until well mixed.
Boil manicotti noodles according to package directions or personal preference, drain. After draining I put them in the (clean) sink half filled with cold water to help them keep their shape while waiting to be filled.
Using a spoon (or a pastry bag if you chopped the mozzarella into small enough pieces to come out the tip) fill each manicotti noodle with cheese mixture. This step can be messy and takes some practice. I find it best to hold manicotti almost vertically in left hand with bottom opening against palm of hand to keep too much from running out. Arrange filled manicotti noodles loosely in baking dish that has already had some of the sauce added to bottom. Pour more sauce over the center of each manicotti to make it look as attractive as possible. How much sauce you use on bottom of pan and over the top is personal preference. I sometimes have sauce left over and freeze it. Garnish each manicotti with an optional mushroom slice and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese. I love (real) Parmesan so I’m generous with it.
Bake at 350° roughly 1/2 hour or until bubbly. Serve and (hopefully) enjoy.
Hints: If I simmer sauce uncovered on stovetop I add the wine soon after simmering. That way if it’s too thick I can add water or if it’s too thin I can simmer longer. I’ve tried using a pastry bag to fill the manicotti but it didn’t come out easily. Perhaps I needed a larger tip or I’d cut the mozzarella cheese cubes a little too large. I usually double the recipe and make multiple pans of it so I can freeze some – it’s not a lot of added work to make extra and you’ve already got the mess.
I realize that one man’s favorite Italian dish is potentially another person’s poison but my readers asked so I provided.
Ron
Thanks, Ron. Looking forward to trying your recipe. Elizabeth
OMG, Ron – YUMMO!! Just LOVE Italian dishes!!!
Missed yesterday’s blog…had to read this twice–to be sure it was NOT some exotic bird called a Cheesy Manicotti!!! Raised a robin that I couldn’t reparent, either with it’s own of adoptive parents…bird loved high protein spaghetti, so we called him Pasta…stuck around for a while then flew the coop…
Nope, I try very hard to avoid “inventing” new species of birds, Patty. That would be… cheesy of me.
This is great! Now we won’t have to arm wrestle for leftovers.
🙂
I’m going to veganize your recipe (sacrilege, I know). I’ll let you know how it turns out.
Wow, that ought’a be a challenge…
Yum!! Thanks Ron. I will definitely give this a try. I have lost my Mom’s recipe but yours sounds very similar. Thanks again!
You’re welcome, Linda.
Aw… you are supposed to post a nice picture of the completed dish to tease our salivary glands! 🙂
What ingredient did you spend so much time hunting around for the other day?
Second on your ingredient requiring “real” parmagiano is a step down.
Thanks!
I know. I wished I’d had a photo like that when I was about to publish the post.
Tomato puree. Apparently some stores aren’t carrying it any more, including Smith’s. And Harmon’s only had one can of it and I needed two. Thankfully I found another one hiding from me at home. I’m going to stock up on puree the next time I find it in a store.
“In theory” Walmart carries Contadina brand tomato puree
Thanks Judy, I’ll check. So does Harmon’s, in theory…
Huge thanks.
I have bookmarked this and will come back to it (no doubt time and time again). Mind you the other residents of the house probably wouldn’t like it. Their loss.
“the other residents of the house probably wouldn’t like it”
EC, if you ask me that’s a very good reason to make it!
All the more for me.
A friend will visit shortly and I’m going to try this recipe ahead of time for those days that we spend the afternoon hunting and I’m too wasted to actually cook! Thank you, again, for your generosity of spirit. I love that about you!!!!
Good idea, Laura. And thank you.
Sounds absolutely
wonderful and also sounds like a labor of love, with the stress on the labor. I have relatives in Provo and Logan I need to visit . . . how about you just let me know the next time you’re making it and I’ll just happen to “drop by.”
Ha, I won’t be making it for a while, Shirley. I’m cooked out at the moment.
Sounds great! I use a large pastry bag to fill my manicotti. Way easier than a spoon
Jackie, I tried to use a pastry bag once but it wouldn’t come out of the tip very well. Perhaps my mozzarella cubes were too large or my bag tip too small.
Thx for tip “little sis” 🙂
The leftovers I had planned on eating for dinner tonight are suddenly looking much less appealing!😁
🙂
Sounds yummy! Sometimes it takes “messy” to do that! 🙂 Thx!
It sure does!
Mmmmm….
🙂
Thank you for sharing your recipe! 🙂 These sound really good — and like a labor of love. Never thought about adding cream cheese to my filling. Tarragon in the sauce sounds interesting too (and I love tarragon). It also reminds me of this Everybody Loves Raymond episode: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4thm3x (tarragon comes in around 19:00).
Ha, I once had a mother-in-law that probably would have done that to me, given the opportunity. And if she wasn’t supposed to eat it!
Looks good looks similar to mine BUT…that package of cream cheese 😊is an interesting addition! I can imagine the taste😍…I will try that with my next Italian dinner. thank you
Hope you like it, Kathy.