Manicotti

I am still hitting the gym on a regular basis. Now, I am not one of those people who is all "the gym is soooo fun! I LOVE working out". The gym is not fun, it's grueling, tough and sometimes painful. It's because of that, that I drive not to the gym that is seven minutes from my house, but to the one that is thirty minutes away.

I know you are thinking, how does that make sense? You see the gym by my house is set up like this:

Meaning that if I am on a cardio machine, all the eye candy is BEHIND me. And if I'm going to suffer at the gym, I might as well have something to look at right? So I go to the gym set up like this:

This way if I am on a cardio machine, I can slyly look over and see all the eye candy using the weights. Both diagrams were made in Paint, using my awesome Paint skills.

Now the problem with the gym, is it's hard to look attractive. I was born with very fair skin, and after about five minutes on the treadmill my face goes from being the color of carefully applied foundation and blush to the color of a hothouse tomato in season. My favorite color for everything but skin. Then we have my hair. I can either pull it into a ponytail and secure my bangs back with a headband, or leave some of it down with my bangs pulled back. Problem. I hate my hair in a ponytail, I think it makes me look like a boy. If I leave some of it down, it looks good for all of ten minutes. After that, it starts to get sweaty and clings to my neck, making it look like I'm being choked by seaweed. This is not a good look for me, and I have resigned myself to the fact I will probably not be getting hit on at the gym.

As you can see, there is pasta in this post. I realize this three pasta entries in a row. I haven't been on a pasta binge, but it's just the way that the posts have worked out. I have a backlog of food to talk about, and today I feel like writing about the manicotti.

I served the manicotti with a spinach salad. Of all the salad greens in the world, I would have to say that spinach is my favorite.

Rebekah's Spinach Salad (serves 4)

1) in a dry skillet on medium heat, toast 1/3 cup of pine nuts. The pine nuts are toasted when they turn a golden color, and smell nutty.

2) Divide roughly 4 cups of spinach leaves into four bowls.

3) Thinly slice 2 shallots, and divide between the four bowls

4) Divide the pine nuts between the four bowls

5) In a bowl combine 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar, 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil, 1 tsp Dijon mustard, and 1 minced clove of garlic. Whisk until combined. Drizzle dressing over salad.

Mmm, I love balsamic vinegar!

Rebekah's Manicotti (Serves 4)

1) Put a large pot of water on to boil. Once it's boiled, add some salt, and 8 manicotti shells.

2) Meanwhile, make the filling. Combine an egg with a cup of ricotta cheese and roughly half a cup of grated mozzarella cheese. This is the basic filling. To the one I made in the picture I added some pepper, red chili flakes, and thin strips of spinach leaves. I have previously made manicotti with chopped sun dried tomatoes and canned artichokes (amazing), or you could add grated carrot, onion, and broccoli that has been cut into small pieces. Sky's the limit.

3) Take a jar of spaghetti sauce and place into a saucepan. Add some water to the jar, shake it up, and add it to the sauce. Heat the sauce until it just starts to boil, then remove from the heat.

4) When the manicotti has softened, but is not yet cooked to al dente, pull them out of the water. To make them cool enough to handle I run them under some cold water (which I realize rinses the starch off of them, and I would never recommend rinsing pasta, but for this sometimes you just have to deal with it)

5) Spoon the filling into a piping bag. Or if you don't have one, a plastic freezer bag. I do not recommend using a sandwich bag as they aren't sturdy enough. Cut a corner off the bag, and use it to pipe the filling into the noodles. Like this:

6) Take a cup of the sauce and pour it into a baking dish large enough to hold the manicotti. Shake the dish so the sauce covers the bottom. Layer the manicotti in a single row on top of the sauce. Pour the remaining sauce over the manicotti and top with another half cup of mozzarella cheese.

7) Place in an oven that has been preheated for 350 F for 30 minutes, covered. After 30 minutes remove the lid, and let bake for another 10 minutes.

Remove from the oven.