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Waiting for 7:00
Aug. 13th, 2008 05:46 pmI'm a little impressed with myself. It's 5:40-something, and I've already nearly completed tonight's special birthday dinner for Austin. Actually, I was almost finished an hour ago, and the kitchen is clean. (Fun fact: I love it when it looks like I don't cook in my kitchen but still have a beautiful dinner. It doesn't happen often.) How is this possible?
I made the special dish (cheese and spinach manicotti) ahead of time after I exercised earlier. Even though it is a time and labor intensive dish, my mom said she used to make pans of it early in the day without tomato sauce on it. Then she'd put it in the refrigerator until she was ready to make the rest of dinner. Awesome!
She also told me the recipe used to be something my aunt Linda (not capitalized on purpose, long story) made all the time from a recipe she found in a magazine; only instead of ricotta cheese (the standard for my mom, sisters, and me), she used cottage cheese. And here I thought my mom had just made it up somewhere.
Since Linda's time, my mom has tweaked the recipe, and my sisters and I have tweaked my mom's recipe. This will probably continue this way forever. The base filling mix is ricotta cheese, shredded mozzarella, parmesan cheese, and mayonnaise. After this, you can add ground meat or sausage, spinach, extra cheese, herbs and spices, or anything else you think might taste good. It's all going to get stuffed into pasta tubes, slathered in sauce, and baked anyway, so the sky is the limit. I don't think I've made it the same way twice since there is no written recipe at this point. Kind of interesting.
So, this is me babbling and pretending to be Suzy Homemaker while I wait until 7:00 so the food will be nice and hot when Austin gets off work. But I want it now! This is what I get for making something I wanted to eat because Austin had no special requests. Feel free to point and laugh, but sometimes planning really pays off.
I made the special dish (cheese and spinach manicotti) ahead of time after I exercised earlier. Even though it is a time and labor intensive dish, my mom said she used to make pans of it early in the day without tomato sauce on it. Then she'd put it in the refrigerator until she was ready to make the rest of dinner. Awesome!
She also told me the recipe used to be something my aunt Linda (not capitalized on purpose, long story) made all the time from a recipe she found in a magazine; only instead of ricotta cheese (the standard for my mom, sisters, and me), she used cottage cheese. And here I thought my mom had just made it up somewhere.
Since Linda's time, my mom has tweaked the recipe, and my sisters and I have tweaked my mom's recipe. This will probably continue this way forever. The base filling mix is ricotta cheese, shredded mozzarella, parmesan cheese, and mayonnaise. After this, you can add ground meat or sausage, spinach, extra cheese, herbs and spices, or anything else you think might taste good. It's all going to get stuffed into pasta tubes, slathered in sauce, and baked anyway, so the sky is the limit. I don't think I've made it the same way twice since there is no written recipe at this point. Kind of interesting.
So, this is me babbling and pretending to be Suzy Homemaker while I wait until 7:00 so the food will be nice and hot when Austin gets off work. But I want it now! This is what I get for making something I wanted to eat because Austin had no special requests. Feel free to point and laugh, but sometimes planning really pays off.
