Could We Be Italian?

The other night I asked Kyle to pick out a recipe for dinner. I wasn’t expecting much but was very surprised by his choice. He found a recipe off Eat Better America, Turkey Sausage Stuffed Sells! It turned out to be one of the best Italian dishes I’ve ever made. I was a little hesitant because I knew it would take awhile to cook and I’m usually ready to eat about 6:00 or 6:30. It wasn’t ready till about 7:45 but was so worth it.

The recipe seems like a lot of steps but it’s not too bad. Especially when you have help!

Cook your sausage until browned. mix together your ricotta cheese and mozzarella cheese.

Cut your cooked pasta in half to make it easier to stuff.

Pour part of your sauce into bottom of sprayed dish. Stuff your pasta and arrange in dish. This is the fun part!

Pour remaining pasta on top.

Cover with foil and bake.

Turkey Sausage Stuffed Shells

1 box of Manicotti shells

1lb lean Italian turkey sausage, casings removed

1 container (15 oz) light ricotta cheese

2 cups shredded reduced-fat Italian cheese blend (8 oz)

1 box (9 oz) frozen spinach, thawed, squeezed and drained

1 teaspoon dried basil leaves

1 jar (25.5 oz) organic Italian herb pasta sauce

1. Heat oven to 350°F. Spray 13x9-inch (3-quart) glass baking dish with cooking spray. Cook and drain pasta as directed on package, omitting salt.

2. In 10-inch nonstick skillet, crumble sausage. Cook over medium heat, stirring frequently, until no longer pink; drain.

3. In medium bowl, stir ricotta cheese, 1 cup of the Italian cheese blend, the spinach and basil until well mixed. Stir in sausage.

4. Spread about 1/2 cup of the pasta sauce over bottom of baking dish. Cut manicotti shells in half. Spoon about 3 tablespoonful's sausage mixture into each pasta. Arrange pasta, on sauce in baking dish. Pour remaining pasta sauce over stuffed pasta. Spray 15-inch piece of foil with cooking spray; cover pasta with foil.

5. Bake 40 minutes. Uncover; sprinkle with remaining 1 cup Italian cheese blend. Bake uncovered 5 to 10 minutes longer or until cheese is melted.

Served with a side salad and garlic bread!

I dare you to try it! Let me know how it turns out.

Comments

Day 1–Have a Headache Already

Happy New Year to everyone! Day 1 of the detox started today. It’s been pretty tough,I’m not gonna lie. I went to Whole Foods and Walmart yesterday to get all the fruits and vegetables I needed for the week. I’ve had a headache all day due to the lack of caffeine. I really don’t drink but maybe a cup and a half of coffee and a glass of tea a day. But I sure did miss it today. This morning I got up to help in the nursery at church. I made the Antioxidant smoothie. You can find the recipe here . It was really good, a little tart but not bad. When I got to the church I got a cup of unsweetened green tea (no caffeine) so I could convince myself it was a cup of coffee. The tea and smoothie held me over till about 11:30. I made a nice little salad for lunch with water with of couple apples thrown in. My salad had spinach, avocado, cucumbers, carrots, cherry tomatoes, and pumpkin seeds dressed with balsamic vinaigrette I did get pretty hungry this afternoon so I made the roasted chi...

Vanilla Bean Almond Butter

I don’t know about you but I LOVE nut butters. I have never made my own because I didn’t realize out easy it was. I’m telling ya, everyone can make nut butter as long as you have a decent food processor and there's not turning back. I’ve had some left over vanilla beans from the vanilla I made a while back and wanted to use them, so I decided to use them in the almond butter. I made this about a week ago and it’s already half gone! It’s like a yummy creamy dessert. Once you try fresh pure nut butters you will never go back to store bought. Only 3 ingredients and no added oils! So here it goes: Start out by toasting your almonds until they start to smell yummy. Pour your almonds in the food processer and start to process. You will need to process for 8 to 10 minutes and stop several times to scrape down the sides, so be patient. Stage 1 Stage 2- Powder Stage 3-The natural oil starts to come out and its starts to ball up. Stage 4-Almost there, just a f...

2011 AR Cornbread Festival

Saturday was the 2011 Arkansas Cornbread Festival in Little Rock. I entered the competition thinking it would be a fun activity to participate in; I had no idea how big of a festival it was going to be. The number of attendents kept increasing which made me more nervous as the competition neared. The last count I had heard was 1000 people and I thought, how am I’m going to fix enough cornbread for that many people? I knew that they would only be getting a 2 oz sample cup but still, that's a lot of people. I spent Friday afternoon and evening baking cornbread. They suggested that we make 4 13x9 in square inch pans worth of cornbread, I ended up shooting for 5 just to be safe. My cornbread was called Citrus Corny Cornbread. It originated from my mom’s corny cornbread recipe that I grew up on but I put a little twist on it by adding orange juice, orange zest, and cream cheese. After 3 trips to Walmart and o...

Keep It Fun And Healthy

Search This Blog