Ok, I know it's not Sunday, but I'm made something that is quickly becoming a new favorite tonight, and wanted to share. I'm slowly starting to take meat out of our diet, I started with removing red meat, and now I've started experimenting with some recipes that don't include meat. Since I'm a newb at it, it's mostly been pasta before, where it's heavy enough you don't miss the meat.
I got this recipe off of the back of the Barilla manicotti box (I actually copied it from the website to include it in here.) I made a few changes, of course, because I never seem to follow a recipe in full...(which might be why I can't bake...hmm...)
The Original:
1 box BARILLA Manicotti
1 jar BARILLA Italian Baking Sauce
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
6 ounces mushrooms, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 bag (6 ounces)fresh spinach, chopped (may substitute 10 oz. frozen chopped spinach, thawed and well drained)
2 eggs
1 container (15 ounces) ricotta cheese
1/3 cup chopped basil leaves
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese
PREHEAT oven to 350°F.
COOK Manicotti for 7 minutes; drain and rinse in cool water. Set aside.
HEAT oil in large skillet over medium heat. Add mushrooms and garlic; sauté 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Stir in spinach; continue cooking 5 minutes. Set aside to cool.
BEAT eggs lightly in medium bowl. Stir in ricotta, basil and salt. Stir in mushroom mixture.
SPREAD ¾ cup Italian Baking Sauce over bottom of 13x9-inch baking dish. Fill Manicotti with mushroom mixture; place in dish. Pour remaining Sauce evenly over filled shells; sprinkle with cheese. Cover with foil. Bake for 30 minutes. Uncover; continue baking 5-10 minutes or until cheese is melted.
The changes I made are: Omit the basil (I like a little bit of basil, and of course I love the Bazals, however, I think this calls for waaaay too much, plus, I never have fresh basil.) I also omitted the salt.
I used button mushrooms the first time, tonight I'm used portabella, and they were equally nice.
Both times I've used the fresh spinach, the first time I was struggling to get it done quickly so I just shredded some up, and the chunks were too big for my liking, so this time I decided to drag out the trusty old food processor. I used it for the garlic, mushrooms AND spinach and it made the mixture look much prettier and much more evenly distributed.
The first time I made it I used the manicotti and thought it was too much work, so tonight I decided to use shells...Next time, we're going back to the manicotti! They took SO MUCH LONGER to stuff! We were also brain storming about ways to make it faster and I think that I'll put the mixture in a bag next time and squirt it into the noodles that way. Probably quicker and less messy...we shall see.
Other than that, I just used 4 cheese sauce, but kept everything else the same.
Tonight we ate it alone, but I think it would pair nicely with a side salad and some garlic bread. Enjoy!
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