Spinach Cheese Manicotti

I made Spinach Cheese Manicotti for Sunday "dinner" (which is what I call the Sunday mid-day meal- I call the evening meal "supper", but only on Sundays for some weird reason).

I pre-cooked the noodles before church so that would be ready for me when I got home. When I got ready to assemble the cheese I realized I hadn't gotten one of the ingredients- cream cheese. No biggie, I just winged it... I added more mozzarella cheese, and an egg to help bind the ricotta and the mozzarella together (something I frequently do when making lasagna, and that was actually part of the recipe on the back of the manicotti shell box as well.) I didn't follow the recipe exactly in other areas, I used a store bought sauce and omitted the garlic. In many of my future endeavors I plan on following the SPIRIT of the recipe anyway, so this was just par for the course.

When it was time to fill the shells I wanted to try a trick I'd seen on a Martha Stewart show... didn't work for me. I spooned the combined cheese into a plastic bag and cut off a tip, so it would be like a pastry bag. I don't think my plastic bag was strong enough (I used a cheap store-brand) and I must not have had the technique right. I ended up breaking most of the shells, so I just spilt them all down the side, laid them flat on a plate, squirted a line of cheese in the center and then rolled it back up- I should have done that from the beginning, it was much easier.

I plated the meal with salad and a yummy garlic crescent roll that I had seen at the grocery store's bakery department. I still hadn't told him the name of the disk. When I asked my DH for a star rating (like 4 out of 5 stars) he just rolled his eyes. I asked for suggestions or comments, and he said slowly, "there was a lot of green stuff inside." Duh- it was the Spinach. I'll admit that I'd never cooked spinach before, and it's only been in the house in baby/raw form for salads, so perhaps I should have prepared him for the spinach-ness about it, but I didn't think it tasted too spinach-y.

I will definitely make this recipe again, or at least a lasagna version with the spinach, and I'd probably make the recipe again like I did this first time, w/out the cream cheese and with the homemade sauce.

(PHOTO TAKEN FROM THE TASTE OF HOME WEBSITES)