Pasta Dishes to Warm You Up (Southern Living 1979)

The title of this section of the Southern Living 1979 is "Pasta Dishes to Warm You Up".  Perfect for January, right?  I've made half of the recipes in this section, so let me tell you how they turned out.

I started off the day after New Year's Day making our first Southern Living 1979 recipe of 2014: Quick Manicotti.  Audry chose this recipe for us to try.  I inadvertently had all but one of the ingredients we needed; so after a quick stop at the grocery store by Kevin, we were good to go.

Quick Manicotti
7 manicotti shells
1 pound ground turkey
1 clove garlic, minced
1 cup low fat cottage cheese
1 cup shredded 2% milk mozzarella cheese
1/4 cup low fat sour cream
2 cups spaghetti sauce
About 3 T Parmesan cheese

Cook manicotti shells according to package directions; drain.  Rinse in cold water; drain and set aside.
Saute ground turkey and garlic until turkey is no longer pink.  Drain off pan drippings.
Add cottage cheese, mozzarella cheese, and sour cream to meat; stir well.
Stuff manicotti shells with meat mixture.
Arrange shells in sprayed casserole dish - approximately 13x9x2-inch baking dish.
Pour spaghetti sauce over manicotti.
Cover and bake at 350 for 15 minutes.
Uncover and bake 10 additional minutes.

I ended up with extra meat, so I know that 8 manicotti shells would have been much better.  Extra meat was perfect for me, though.  I wanted to give my youngest (just turned one year) the meat without all the spaghetti sauce and noodles.  In other words, I didn't want the mess.

This Manicotti recipe was a huge hit with the family.  There wasn't much "quick" about it, though, other than the amount of time it had to cook.  Preparing manicotti shells just takes a while.

Since I only used seven of the manicotti shells, I wanted to make another recipe that could use the other seven manicotti shells.  I decided to give the Jumbo Seashells Florentine a makeover - first of all instead of jumbo seashells, manicotti.  I knew this would take a while to "stuff" the shells, but the kids were great playing together while I stirred and stuffed.

Manicotti Florentine
7 manicotti shells
1 (10-ounce) package chopped spinach, cooked and drained
1 egg, beaten
1/4 t salt
1/8 t pepper
1 cup low-fat cottage cheese
1-1/2 cups cream of chicken soup (Chery also posted a gluten free cream of chicken soup recipe)

Heat oven to 400F.
Cook manicotti shells according to package directions; drain.
Cook spinach according to package directions; drain.
While the above are cooking, make cream of chicken soup, if not already made.
Combine spinach, egg, salt, pepper, and cottage cheese.  Stir gently.
Spoon spinach mixture into manicotti shells.
Pour soup over manicotti shells.
Cover and bake at 400F for 15 minutes.  Spoon sauce over macaroni; bake an additional 10 minutes.

Kevin wasn't home, but this was a HUGE hit with all three kids.  They thought it was worth the wait.  Little man had "thirds".  I thought it tasted very good, too.

Lindy