Sausage & 3 Cheese Manicotti

I must still have 40 jars of home made marinara sauce left that mom canned this past summer.  When I talked to her yesterday, she said I need to come up and get a lot more.  Her garden last summer was over grown with tomatoes so she canned more then enough marinara, tomato sauce and paste for both of us.  So I am at the point of needing to use up what I have.  Well I love my pasta attachments for my Kitchen Aid Mixer.  I so love the taste and texture of home made pasta.  So using the same pasta recipe I used to make ravioli, I made manicotti’s tonight.

Y’all, this is so easy to do.  Just run your pasta through your pasta maker to make the dough into long strips.  I usually take mine down to the #4 setting.  Then spread your filler in a strip down the middle of the whole strip of pasta.  Then bring each side up to make a long roll of cheese filled pasta.  Cut into the lengths you like (you’ll see by my picture I can’t cut equal sizes…LOL).  I only cooked 6 and froze the remaining ones for another meal.

INGREDIENTS:

• 3/4 pound Italian sausage
• 3-1/2 cups shredded mozzarella
• 1 cup cottage cheese
• 1 cup ricotta cheese
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 large egg, lightly beaten
• 1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
• 1 teaspoon dried Italian seasoning
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
• 4 strips of home made pasta (about 12” each)
• 1 quart marinara sauce

INSTRUCTIONS

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Grease a 13 x 9-inch baking dish. (or 9×9 if cooking half of them)

Pour 2 cups of the pasta sauce into the baking dish; set aside.

In a bowl combine the cooked/drained sausage with 1-1/2 cups  mozzarella cheese, cottage cheese, ricotta cheese, garlic, egg, parmesan chees, Italian seasoning, salt and pepper.

Spread mixture in about a 1 1/2 inch thickness along the length of the pasta strip, then carefully roll or just bring up each side of the pasta strip over the cheese mixture. Make sure they are wrapped tightly.  You can cut off any excess pasta so only about 1/2 inch overlaps.  Put on cookie sheet and place in refrigerator for about 30 minutes to firm up the filling. (pasta may be a bit sticky when removing from fridge)  Remove from refrigerator and cut into desired lengths (about 4-6 inches).

 

Arrange the filled shells in a single layer over sauce,

then top with the remaining 3 cups of sauce (use a spoon to spread the sauce to cover the shells).

Sprinkle the remaining 2 cups shredded cheese evenly over sauce. ( only used about a cup)

Cover tightly with foil.

Bake for 30 minutes.

Let stand about 10 minutes before serving.