Sausage Stuffed Manicotti- Cooking Light

There are certain recipes that I just can't wait to try, but never get around to making.  I can't even remember how long ago I printed this recipe up.  I was searching for something else and loved the look and sound of it so much that I couldn't wait to try it.  Of course, it took me at least a year to do it. 

The best kind of recipe is one that features items that I usually keep in my house and seems easy, but is also a little outside of the box.  This has it all for me.  It also uses a cream sauce instead of ricotta cheese, which excited me.  Shawn can't stand ricotta which really limits us in the baked Italian world.  I will, sometimes, make it with half ricotta and half not but its just not the same for some reason.  I hoped that the cream sauce would be a happy medium. 

I started by browning up turkey sausage with chopped peppers and onions.  In a separate pan, I used equal parts flour and butter and added 2 cups of skim milk.  Boiled until it got thick, stirring constantly.  I learned a long time ago to not do anything else while performing this step.  The sausage was off the burner at this point and I had full focus on the sauce at hand.  I really like the consistancy that it created and will give this a shot the next time that I make mac and cheese. 

I added about half of the cream sauce to the meat mixture and set the rest aside.  The recipe calls for uncooked manicotti shells.  I started filling them by using a spoon and that got old really fast.  I ended up using my (washed) hands to stuff the shells and placed them in a pregreased baking dish.  The recipe doesn't call for it, but next time I will add some sauce to the bottom.  I also would leave some more space between the shells, allowing sauce to fully envelop the shells.  There was a little meat leftover, which I added to the open spots in the dish.  Topped those bad boys with some mozzarella, then covered with the remaining cream sauce, 2 cups of marinara sauce, some parmesan cheese. 

It looks like a lot of sauce, but trust me.  It'll soak it all up. 

I baked it all for 30 minutes and then let it sit for a while.  The dish looked fantastic!!  The sauce didn't cook the noodles completely through.  They were a little al dente for my taste, but that's easily adjusted for next time.  The taste was ridiculous, though!!  So flavorful, creamy, and delicous.  I would just encourage you to make a side vegetable or salad with it to keep you from eating way more than the recommended portion size.  Oh, and the leftovers were just as good!

http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/sausage-stuffed-manicotti-10000001886430/