Tuesday Night Dinner at Home: Manicotti

Tonight I decided Tuesdays would be a good day to chronicle my adventures in the kitchen (both disasterous and successful). So, for any Tuesday that I don't have other plans in the indefinite future, I will make a delightful dinner at home and live to tell about it here. On this, the first night of TNDAH (catchy, huh?), I've decided to go with a recipe aptly titled "Easy Baked Manicotti" that I received from a friend at work. I've already tried this recipe for dinner with a friend once before and was not entirely pleased with how it turned out. Tonight I learned maybe it was because I lack a certain cook's intuition. Suffice to say, it's important to actually cook the manicotti shells before baking them.

After preheating the oven, layering the bottom of the baking dish with spaghetti sauce and cooking the manicotti shells, I stuffed them with a mixture of egg, ricotta, mozzarella and parmesan cheeses and pesto. Then I poured the additional spaghetti sauce over the shells, covered it with tinfoil and baked for 35 minutes.

Before:

After:

Yummy. After 35 minutes, I sprinkled a little parmesan cheese on top of the manicotti and baked uncovered for an additional five minutes. To complement the manicotti, I assembled a quick and easy salad of organic baby greens, grape tomatoes, shredded colby-jack cheese, croutons and parmesan romano dressing (my new summer favorite). To drink, I had a tall glass of raspberry lemonade.

And, while unfortunately not homemade, I offer my thanks to Edy's for the delicious Slow Churned Caramel Delight ice cream.

Easy Baked Manicotti Recipe
2 1/2 cups spaghetti sauce, divided
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 3/4 cups ricotta cheese
1 1/2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
1/4 cup pesto
12 manicotti shells, cooked al dente

Preheat oven to 350. Spread 3/4 cup of the spaghetti sauce on bottom of 13x9-inch baking dish. Mix egg, cheeses and pesto until well blended. Spoon cheese mixture into large resealable plastic bag. Using scissors, cut off small hole from one of the bottom corners of bag. Fill manicotti shells, one at a time, squeezing cheese mixture into both sides of each shell. Place manicotti over sauce in baking dish; pour remaining 1 3/4 cups spaghetti sauce over manicotti. Cover with foil. Bake 40 minutes or until heated through.