Sunday, June 05, 2005
Here's a few good recipes we've had recently. The kids especially loved the Monkey Bread (which Denver now calls "Monkey Balls") and have asked to have it again several times. Mark and I liked the Manicotti and were even more thrilled when our kids ate it. Anyway, if you're like me, a few "tried it and liked it" recipes are always helpful. Hope you're family enjoys them as much as ours did.
Easy Monkey Bread
4 cans (10-count) refrigerated biscuits
1 cup white sugar, divided
1 cup brown sugar, divided
1 Tbsp. ground cinnamon
1 cup butter
1 cup chopped nuts, optional
non-fat vegetable spray
Spray a 10-inch bundt pan with the veggie spray. Set aside. Cut each biscuit into 4 pieces. In a plastic bag, combine 1/2 cup of each sugar and the cinnamon. Mix well. Place half of the biscuit pieces, a few at a time, in the bag and shake well to cover. Place biscuit pieces in bundt pan. In a saucepan, mix together remaining white and brown sugars with butter (and nuts.) Heat until butter melts and sugars dissolve but do not boil. Pour half of syrup mixture over biscuits in the bundt pan. Shake remaining biscuit pieces in bag of sugar mixture. Place in pan and add remainder of butter mixture on the top. Bake at 350 degrees for 40-50 minutes, but do not over bake or syrup will crystallize. Cool just long enough to flip pan over onto a serving plate. Remove pan and serve.
Spinach Cheese Manicotti
1 10-oz. pkg. frozen chopped spinach
1 32-oz. jar spaghetti or marinara sauce
1 cup water
1 egg
1 16-oz. carton ricotta or cottage cheese
2 8-oz. pkgs. shredded mozzarella cheese
1/2 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. pepper
1 8-oz. pkg. manicotti, uncooked (14 shells)*
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 13- x 9- x 2-inch baking dish. In a saucepan, cook spinach according to package directions. Drain well and squeeze dry; set aside.
Place 1 cup of the spaghetti or marinara sauce in bottom of dish. Stir in water; set aside. In a medium bowl, beat egg. Stir in ricotta cheese, 2 cups of the mozzarella cheese, spinach, salt and pepper until well blended. Using a table knife, fill manicotti shells with spinach mixture. Arrange in dish. Spoon remaining sauce over shells to coat completely. Cover tightly with foil. Bake for 1 1/4 hours or until shells are very tender when pierced with a fork. Sprinkle with remaining 2 cups mozzarella cheese. Bake 3 to 5 minutes longer or until cheese melts.
*I made 7 shells for dinner and froze the other 7 stuffed shells for another night. We still had leftovers but didn't have to spend four nights trying to eat them all. And I have an easy dinner already prepared in my freezer for some night when I'm too hot and tired to cook--which I'm sure I'll have plenty of come the end of August.
posted by Shana # 8:14 PM 
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