MANICOTTI

There is something soothing about cooking Italian food. The lasagna, baked ziti, stuffed shells...all slowly come together piece by piece into the most wonderful comfort food. Stirring the sauce, preparing the filling, putting down the layers of pasta and sauce are like a ritual that you know leads to something special and exciting.
After going away and eating nothing but sandwiches and French fries, I really wanted some homemade food, and decided on stuffed manicotti. The recipe is similar to stuffed shells - there is a ricotta filling inside pasta with tomato sauce - but I wanted to add some more nutritional oomph, so I added chopped, cooked spinach to my filling. Stuffing the manicotti was a little tricky with a regular spoon, but a long skinny spoon worked great. A lot of the manicotti was ripped on the side, or all the way through, leading me to cheat a little on one of them and simply open the shell up, lay down the filling and close it again.
It's in the oven now - I'll let you know how it is!