Spinach & Cheese Manicotti (w/freezing instructions!)

Last weekend I went on a cooking and freezing binge.  Every so often I take an entire day (or an entire weekend) and cook up a bunch of meals to freeze.  I love having all this pre-made stuff in my freezer...pre-made by me, not Stouffer's or whoever else makes all that garbage.  One of the dishes I made was manicotti (the recipe came via my mom from allrecipes.com...except for the freezing instructions, those are all me).  Of course, as always, I didn't quite follow the recipe, so I'll do my best with measurements and whatnot.  Cooking is definitely an art, not a science, and 100% depends on your personal tastes (for example, when a recipe calls for garlic or cheese, I always use more than it tells me too).  But I'm really trying to pay more attention to measurements and times so that I can share these a bit more articulately here!  And just a note about the photos, I had a hard time making the cooked stuff look very pretty

Ingredients:

1 (15 oz) container ricotta cheese

1 (16 oz) bag frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry

½ cup minced onion

1 egg

2 tsp dried parsley

½ tsp pepper

½ tsp garlic powder

1 ½ cup shredded mozzarella cheese, divided

½ cup grated Parmesan cheese, divided

spaghetti sauce (see previous "Put down that jar!" post)

1 (8 oz) package manicotti shells

Instructions:

1)  Preheat oven to 350.

2)  In a large bowl, combine ricotta, spinach, onion and egg.  Season with parsley, pepper and garlic powder.  Mix in 1 c mozzarella and ¼ c Parmesan.  (**If you want to freeze this, stop here and skip down to "Freezing Directions.")  

3)  In separate bowl, stir together spaghetti sauce and water.  Spread 1 c sauce in the bottom of a 9x13 baking dish.  Stuff uncooked manicotti shells with ricotta mixture, and arrange in a single layer in the dish.  Cover with remaining sauce.  Sprinkle with remaining mozzarella and Parmesan.

4)  Bake in preheated oven for 45 to 55 min, or until noodles are soft.

**Freezing Directions:

Cook manicotti shells about 2 minutes less than the instructions tell you too, until slightly softened but not fully cooked.  Drain, rinse and stuff with ricotta mixture.  Place stuffed shells on a waxed paper lined baking sheet, so that they are not touching.  Place manicotti in freezer until frozen through.  Once they are all frozen, place manicotti into a zip-loc freezer bag or other freezer-safe container.

To thaw:  Place desired number of shells in the refrigerator overnight, and then continue with "Step 3" above.  OR continue with "Step 3" using frozen shells, they'll need to cook longer than 45 - 55 minutes (I did mine this way and started with the shells covered with aluminum foil...but I'm not sure how long I ended up cooking them, I just kept checking them).

enjoy!
 ~ j