Tofu-Stuffed Manicotti

Today's post was originally going to be called Winn-Dixie and Chance Encounters, because I had the good fortune of meeting three like-minded young ladies at Winn-Dixie while I was in the produce section. As we talked about vegetables, juice, and farmer's market locations, my husband reminded me about my blog and the fact that I have abandoned it lately. I changed the name because I figured anyone looking for a manicotti recipe wouldn't be able to find it unless I used the actual word in the name.

I have been trying new recipes, and I have taken pictures of a few of the recipes. But...somehow...I never made it on here to post them.

So, here I go again, with renewed motivation to post new recipes, with pictures, more regularly.

Today, I made stuffed manicotti. Instead of using ricotta cheese, I used silken tofu for the stuffing. I altered the recipe on the box of pasta to make it work. Here are the ingredients that I used.

1 box Manicotti
2 T. extra virgin olive oil
6 oz mushrooms, chopped
5 garlic cloves, minced (the originally recipe only called for one clove, but I like garlic)
6 oz. fresh spinach (I actually used a spinach arugula mix, which was quite tasty)
16 oz silken tofu
dried basil, to taste
1 t. sea salt
1 jar marinara sauce
shredded mozzarella

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Cook the manicotti for 7 minutes. Drain and cool on a sheet pan. Drizzle with olive oil so that it won't stick.
3. In the meantime, heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add mushrooms and garlic. Saute 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Stir in spinach. Continue cooking 5 minutes. Set aside to cool.
4. Whisk the tofu to loosen it up, add basil and salt. Stir in mushroom mixture. Add shredded mozzarella. (Unfortunately, I didn't plan on using any cheese so I didn't measure it. I had originally planned to make this a vegan dish, but I couldn't resist the temptation to add the mozzarella)
5. Spread the marinara sauce on the bottom of a 13x9 baking dish. Fill the manicotti shells with the mushroom mixture and place in baking dish. Pour remaining sauce evenly over filled shells.
6. Sprinkle with mozzarella. Cover with foil.
7. Bake for 30 minutes. Uncover, and continue baking 5-10 minutes or until cheese is melted.

This recipe was delicious! But, it did have a few problems that I would like to fix the next time.

1. First, one jar of marinara was not enough. When the shells were done baking, most of the marinara had cooked away. This left the shells dry around the edges. I would have liked for the shells to be able to swim in the sauce.

2. Also, I would have liked to have fresh basil. Unfortunately, I only had dried. It tasted OK, but fresh basil would have been better.

3. Finally, I would have liked each shell to be more "stuffed" so next time I will use less shells so that I can fill each shell more. As you can see in the picture, the shells flattened out because they didn't have enough stuff inside them.

Almost everyone in my family liked this dish. I will definitely make it again, with the changes. Enjoy!