Manicotti

In my more inventive cooking days, I tried to impress my parents with an Italian dish, of meat and cheese manicotti. Manicotti are pasta tubes, that you cook, stuff, and then bake with a tomato sauce.

First off, let me say that stuffing cooked pasta tubes is not easy, especially with a meat filling. I've seen pictures since of the tubes being filled using a cake decorating device filled with a cheese mixture. Needless to say, I spent an afternoon filling those pasta tubes by hand, and many ripped in the process.

By the time I had them all filled and neatly lined up in an oblong baking dish, I was relieved. I had poured a layer of sauce in the pan, laid the manicotti out and covered the whole thing with more sauce and grated mozzarella cheese.

It was baking in the oven, and smelled wonderful, when my parents arrived. As my Mom was not driven by food, would often forget to eat if left on her own, the impressing part of my meal was directed to my Dad, as he loved to eat.

I was feeling pretty good about the meal, until...Mom looked at me and asked if I had ever tried manicotti, the stuffed pasta?

I just glared at her. "What do you think you're eating?" I asked, annoyed that all my effort had gone for naught, for my mother at any rate. Though I had to see her point. With the sauce and cheese on top, it did look more like a lasagna, without the curly edge pasta, than it did manicotti.

Needless to say, I never tried this dish again.

My Dad loved it, but then he loved most anything, and he loved me.