Homemade Manicotti

For my first real post I decided to share one of my family's favorite recipes, homemade manicotti...no big ugly store bought shells required! Even my toddler will eat this, and his daily menu pretty much only consists of cereal, peanut butter sandwiches and shredded cheese.

I found this recipe in a Rachel Ray magazine a few years ago...and changed it a bit. It is easier to make than it looks and is delicious!!!

Noodles:

3 Large Eggs
1 C Water
3/4 C flour

Filling:

2 C Ricotta Cheese
1 C Mozzarella Cheese
1/2 C Shredded Parmesan Cheese (Original recipe calls for Romano, but I prefer Parm or mix of the 2)
1/3 C Parsley
Sprinkle of Garlic Salt
3 T Milk

1 Jar of your favorite pasta sauce
Additional cheese for topping

Preheat oven to 350. In a medium bowl combine the cheeses, parsley, garlic salt and milk.

In a separate bowl whisk the eggs with the water. Whisk in the flour.

Heat a skillet over medium heat (at least 8-inch, but I use larger) and spray with cooking spray. Scoop out 3 T of batter into skillet, spreading in a circular motion, you want it to look like a pancake. Repeat this until you have used up all of your batter. If you have small prep bowls they are the best for making these (I have small silicone ones that pour very nicely).

After you have finished all of our noodles (or crepes as Rachel calls them...maybe I'll just call her Rach like her and I are BFF...so crepes as Rach says) poor a small amount of your pasta sauce in the bottom of a 9x13 baking dish and spread to cover entire bottom of pan...don't try to do smaller...just don't...you'll only regret it later! You will think you can fit them in something smaller, but you can't. Then take each of your noodles, fill them with your cheese mixture, roll them up and place them seam side down in your pan. Then cover with your remaining pasta sauce and additional cheese as you desire.

Bake for 25 minutes.

Eat delicious food.

Here's some tips for you:

If you use brown eggs (organic, fresh from the chicken or otherwise) they make a denser noodle because they are a thicker egg, so you will only get half as many noodles, so double your noodle recipe or half your cheese mixture, depending on how many you need to feed. The typical recipe will feed 3-4.

You may have some extra cheese leftover (I usually have a small amount because I usually burn at least 1 noodle trying to do too many things at once), save it and make lasagna (if your family really loves pasta like mine does).

Make sure you have a good non-stick skillet and use the cooking spray or you will never get these noodles out of your pan.

I hope you enjoy! More delicious recipes and other fun things coming soon!

Did you try this recipe? Let me know how it turned out!