Tag: meat sauce

Stuffed Pasta i.e. Manicotti or Jumbo Shells

I found recipes online and made modifications. Is that cheating? I mean what are all food blogs for anyway.

What you need:

Jumbo Shells or Manicotti tubes.

Cheese: I used ricotta, fontina, fresh mozzarella and parmesan and a medium/large bag of shredded mozzarella (for the top).

Eggs

Spices

Red sauce: jar or make your own. I got my sister-in-law to make her awesome red sauce with Italian sausage. Also the sauce from Lasagna will work.

Every recipe I read said to boil the noodles first. Fuck that. I don’t have time to boil noodles then stuff sad limp dick noodles and then bake them.  Remember how all noodles are oven ready? Well this is a good time to use that gem of wisdom. I assure you the moisture from the sauce will make the noodles soft but not too soft. You know al dente as the fancy people like to say. If you are at all worried about the liquid content in the sauce put in some wine.

Mix the ricotta, fontina, fresh mozzarella and half the parmesan. I recommend using a food processor. add in eggs so that it moves around the bowl and doesn’t become one big lump of cheese. Add some salt and Italian spices.

Scoop cheese into a piping bag or a gallon size zip-lock.

Put some sauce on the bottom of your casserole dish or whatever the fuck you’re baking these things in.

“Pipe” the cheese into the noodles…or scoop it in…just get it in to the fuckers. These may be hard with some of the jumbo shells because of the shape. For those I just put them in and said they were “meat stuffed” since the sauce(which had meat) will go on top. Fill up your dish with the stuffed noodles and then put all the sauce on top. I added a little wine so I could justify opening the bottle. Cover with the shredded mozzarella and leftover parmesan. Cover with foil.

Bake at 3500F till you see bubbles (or finish a bottle of wine, you know 60 mins). Remove foil and bake till cheese browns. This might seem familiar. That’s because it is lasagna with slightly different noodles and cheese. You could use this cheese mix in lasagna!

My middle kid called the jumbo shells slugs and wasn’t a fan. He also then referred to the whole dish as slugs at the top of his 4 year old lungs. That’s a super pleasant family dinner.  The other kids were cool to eat it if we called it lasagna, which we did. And since some shells were cooked without cheesy stuffing, I had happy dairy-free family members too, even if they now had the image of slugs in their minds. And you do too! You’re welcome.

chefmckean

Lasagna; or as my son used to nasally say, ah-yah-yah (see video at end)

Things you need:

“Oven ready noodles.” Or as I like to call them, noodles.

Sauce: diced tomatoes and tomato sauce, wine, onion, garlic, spices, ground meat, and more wine.

Cheese: Ricotta Salata, Mozzarella, Parmesan.

Once again this is almost a follow-the-recipe on the box. However, the “oven ready noodles” are a rip off. All noodles matter. All noodles are oven ready. As long as there is liquid for the noodles to absorb/soften, they are fine to cook in-situ. That’s a fancy word for in place. Because I’m fancy!

As much as I hate to admit it, here my husband is probably right: the sauce is the key, and the key to sauce is spices. So add garlic powder, Italian seasoning (oregano, basil, thyme, rosemary), onion powder and salt.

Brown some meat, beef, lamb, pork, or turkey; whatever you like. Add the spices and salt at this point.

Add onion and garlic into the meat. Then add cans of diced tomatoes and some tomato sauce. Then add wine.  Once this is bubbly you have sauce!

Save some wine for yourself. You deserve it. You’re making lasagna for your fucking family. Depending on how fast you drink and how much wine is left you can use it as a timer. I tend to find that after ¾ of a bottle the lasagna is ready for the last stage.

For the cheese mix this is what my family likes (and by family, I mean husband; the kids go along).

Mozzarella – like a big bag. I mean, not the CostCo size big bag but the normal grocery store big bag. Let’s not get carried away here. We all love CostCo but there are limits.

Ricotta Salata (about 5oz) – because my husband hates regular ricotta. I know he’s weird, but ricotta salata is actually pretty good. It has a texture more like feta and is salty like feta.  A possible substitute according to the internet is Pecorino Romano. (I’ll let you know if this is true—trying tonight.)

Parmesan (two cups-ish; maybe three).

Mix ¾ of the big bag of mozzarella with ½ of the parmesan and all the ricotta salata in one bowl – this is your inside-the-lasagna cheese.

Mix the rest of the mozzarella and parmesan for the top.

Now we layer. Start with a few scoops of sauce on the bottom, this helps the lasagna not stick and moistens the noodles.

Then a full layer of noodles, then sauce, then cheese, then noodles, then sauce, then cheese, then noodles again. Until your pan is full. End on cheese with the mozzarella/parmesan mix.

Cover with tin foil. If you don’t want the cheese to stick use a spray oil on it (like PAM or the organic version that makes you feel good about yourself).

Cook till the bottle of wine is gone. 45-60 min. If you don’t want to drink watch for bubbles in the pan.

Once the pan is bubbling and/or your wine is gone remove the foil and cook for another 15 or so mins. You know, enough time to aerate another bottle of wine and brown the cheese on top.

Remove and eat.

In other news…we talked with the 6-year old about racism because that came up. We tried to explain after a glass or two of wine. Needless to say, we will have to try again.

I’m concerned about my daughter. She speaks in the third person. The other day she also said: “I love you mom. I won’t break you apart.”

How many psychopaths am I raising? Will homeschooling and Covid make this worse? I might need a wine club membership.

Here is the boy trying to say lasagna.

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