Kitchen Klutz: Manicotti...you have finally met your match!

By Michèle De Meglio

My mom says I’m a bad Italian.

I use tomato sauce from a jar instead of making it from scratch, I actually enjoyed Chef Boyardee when I was a kid (Don’t judge me!), and I pronounce manicotti MAN-EE-COT-EE and not MON-EE-GO.

In hope of winning my mother’s Sicilian approval, I attempted to make the above-mentioned cheese, sauce and pasta dish.

Manicotti has always been a favorite of mine. As a child too young to work a stove, I begged my mother to make it. As an adult completely incapable in the kitchen, I ordered it in restaurants or microwaved the frozen version. (Okay, I’m ashamed.)

But now that I’m attempting to gain cooking expertise, I figured what better time to toss out freezer-burned heat-and-serve packages and cook this delectable dish from scratch.

Well, almost from scratch. I used Newman’s Own Marinara sauce instead of making it fresh. I’m a novice. Let’s not bite off more than we can chew!

So with my favorite sauce and wooden spoon, I was ready to work. The only problem? Those bloody manicotti shells wouldn’t work with me.

Their first attempt to sabotage my efforts came early when taking suicide plunges into a massive boiling pot. The shells went down fighting, splashing scalding water right at me.

Once removed, tossed in cold water to stop the cooking process (I learned that from you Mom!), and spread out on wax paper to dry, the shells were ready to be stuffed.

I combined ricotta, shredded mozzarella and grated Parmesan cheeses in a bowl with an egg, chopped parsley, salt and pepper and stirred. A spoon didn’t work so I grabbed a whisk and blended - maybe a bit too much.

Now for the hard part.

I tried jamming the cheese mixture into the narrow pasta shells using a tablespoon. Probably not the best idea because most - okay, all - of the shells ripped in half.

The good news - when I laid the manicotti in a casserole dish and covered it with sauce and more mozzarella, you couldn’t tell the difference. So I tossed the dish in the oven for 50 minutes at 350 degrees and hoped for the best.

Verdict:

I loved it! The sauce was sweet, the cheese was gooey and flavorful, the pasta was just right.

But my mother...

She had a bite. Just a bite. The self-professed "sauce snob" was horrified that Newman’s Own Marinara "had sugar" in it. No problem, I took the whole thing home and lived off of it for four days.

Hey, I think I did pretty well. After all, I’m only half Italian.

Recipe: Traditional Manicotti

Ingredients

One box manicotti shells

8 ounces shredded mozzarella cheese

15 ounces ricotta cheese

1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

2 tbsp chopped parsley

1 egg

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp pepper

24 ounces tomato sauce

Directions

Cook shells as per box instructions. Mix cheeses, parsley, egg, salt and pepper in a bowl. Spoon into shells. Coat baking pan with tomato sauce. Place manicotti over sauce. Spread on more sauce and mozzarella. Cover pan with aluminum foil. Bake at 350 degrees for 50 minutes.

Have a recipe for the Kitchen Klutz? Want to share a tip? Send ‘em to MDeMeglio@CNGLocal.com.

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Kitchen Klutz follows 20-something Michèle De Meglio as she burns casseroles and her fingers, all in hope of trading frozen dinners for home cooking.

(Published in the 5.28.09 issue of 24/Seven)