Rain & Recipes

To all my neighbours who wanted a snow day... I'm sorry. I wanted one too. Unfortunately, I'm now at a powerful 62" of scarf magic. (I'm thinking after I've done the last 10", it'll be spring here for good.) For those of you who are glad the Carolina basketball game is on, or something similar, you're welcome.

I made Manicotti last night. :) It was good. I seem to be the type of person who can't resist tinkering with the recipe. I think I'll document this recipe here. However, feel free to modify it yourself. ;)

Andrea's Manicotti

1. In a very large pot, start heating water to cook pasta. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. Add the following ingredients to a large ziploc bag: one 15 oz container of fat free ricotta (425g), one 3.5 oz container of crumbled reduced fat feta (99g), one 16 oz package of part skim mozzarella, shredded (454g), approximately 2 tbsp dried basil, and some fresh ground pepper. (Yes, it shows up as little black flecks, but tastes *way* better than that white stuff.)
3. Eat the bit of mozzarella that was too small to shred.
4. Insert hand into ziploc bag and smoosh until thoroughly mixed, or until arthritis starts acting up.
5. Lick hand (to make sure seasonings are at right proportion, of course). Wash hand.
6. Once large pot of water is boiling, add pasta, and cook as directed. (Mine was 8 minutes.)
7. While waiting for pasta to cook, search for 9"x13" pan.
8. Ponder whether strange bubbles on bottom of pan are harmful.
9. Spread some olive oil around pan with a kleenex, then add a bit more olive oil.
10. Drain pasta, and pour out water so as to burn thumb by pouring boiling water through the potholder.
11. Suck thumb, and continue draining pasta, being more careful this time.
12. Run cold water over both pasta and thumb. Drain again.
13. Visualize pasta sticking to paper towels meant to dry them, then skip this step.
14. Cut hole in corner of ziploc bag.
15. Pipe cheese mixture into pasta shell.
16. Use thumbs to squish cheese mixture down, so you can fit more in. Repeat step 15.
17. Place stuffed manicotti in pan.
18. Repeat steps 14-16 until you run out of cheese mixture. Eat last pasta shell... it was broken anyway.
19. Pour two small cans of tomato juice (5.5fl.oz/163ml each) over manicotti.
20. Sprinkle with thyme and more fresh ground pepper. (I think some ground bay leaves would be nice here too, but I didn't have any.)
21. Cover pasta with 8 oz of smoked provolone slices (227g), making sure to remove paper slice separators.
22. Bake for 15 minutes.
23. Eat salad. (Salad is "good for you", and you're really hungry by now.)
24. Sprinkle manicotti with about 1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese.
25. Bake 10 minutes longer.
26. Enjoy dinner.
27. After dvd finishes, package up remaining manicotti in individual serving size portions... voila, you now have TV dinners for later. :)

Although I've typed this up as 27 steps, don't let that intimidate you. I strongly recommend modifying steps 10-12. I served my manicotti with a tall glass of filtered water, presliced coleslaw with greek salad dressing, and Spiderman 2. Feel free to mix that up too.