Baked Manicotti for Women Who Are in Love with My Husband

This is a post about how the moms in Edie's ballet class are lusting after my husband. Seriously.

Here's the back story: Edie and Lucy take gymnastics and ballet on the weekends in the country. Lucy attacks these classes the way she attacks everything, full on and with every fiber of her being, like a cement truck without brakes. She bolts into the door of each class and never looks back. In every class, she ends up seducing some little pink leotard-wearing creature into being her new BFF and they emerge from class sated with the recollection of their Grand Jetes and their friendship, flush with the perfection of new love.


Edie attacks her class in her own distinctive way, which is basically to throw herself into our arms and peer out from under the safety of our hugs and encouraging words and watch the other kids dance, while she tells us intermittently that she wants to go home and that she loves us more than anything, which really means, "I'm going to tell you over and over that I love you, with my big pouty lip, so your heart will melt and you won't make me do that terrible, evil, public dancing."


David has been going to ballet most times, because it's easier for her to separate from him, and he sits inside the class with her. He is the only parent inside the class. The rest of the 3 year olds are spinning and twirling around the room only vaguely aware that their moms are watching the class through a two way mirror.

And there's David in his own sweet way, surrounded by pink tutu's and little girls with ribbons trailing from their pony tails at once encouraging Edie to dance and be independent and also bringing her in, helping her feel comforted and secure by his presence, his loving words. It's all what I would expect from David while I'm with Lucy in gymnastics, being ignored by a child who is too busy swinging upside down from a rope to even care that I am in the room.


I should've known something was up one day when I happened to be in class with Edie and "the moms" gave David an up-date on how Edie was doing in his absence. But I didn't say anything, lest I look like the kind of woman who thinks every gal is hot for her man. And David wouldn't have believed me anyway. He is convinced that virtually no woman of any hotness would actually be attracted to him. He still swears that my attraction to him is an anomaly and the only reason I was attracted to him is because I have a track record of dating ugly men and it wasn't hard for him to compete.

Seriously, this is the way his brain works. And he isn't insecure about it. He accepts these things as fact and doesn't think about it again. He's all zen about it.

So imagine how stunned he was when my friend Corey happened to be standing outside the window/mirror, watching her daughter in Edie's class and all the ballet moms start talking about David.

"My God, he is such a great dad, that guy..."

"Why yes, he is so patient with her, isn't he?"

"Your telling me, I can't imagine my Doug doing that every Saturday morning."

"He's really a great father. Men could take a lesson from this guy."

"Hmph...attractive, too."

That's right...attractive! Apparently it went on like this. Nauseatingly so. Corey acted like she had no idea who he was and smiled and nodded a lot. I also think she took notes.


When Corey told David I thought his head would spin off. He told me later, "I didn't know any one was watching." He was in total denial, completely unaware that a grown man with cave man hair and an unshaven beard, looking like an older, more seasoned version of Tim Riggins (That's a Friday Night Lights reference) kneeling down in a sea of pink tutus, does not draw the female heterosexual eye. Puh-leeze.

I considered taking over ballet and sending him packing back to gymnastics, but gymnastics is a sweet post. I get a lot of twittering done there and I can scan through nearly an entire Entertainment Weekly, while looking up intermittently to cheer for a child who doesn't even notice that I'm there. I also text people. Gymnastics is better than a bubble bath. I'm not giving up that post.

Instead, I may just have to let the ballet moms have their thrill. I may unbutton another button on his shirt and let him flaunt his wares to his middle age posse. I got a gem and I'm not afraid of anyone knowing it.

xo YM


PS: Here is a little recipe for manicotti and perhaps just one of the reasons, my husband loves me. Take that, ballet moms! Ha!

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Since David is still morally opposed to carbs and thinks pasta might be spawn of the devil, I made this for the kids and I, and for David, I took thinly cut veal leg cutlets and lightly dredged them with the bread crumbs, fried them in olive oil, put a generous dollop of the manicotti filling on each cutlet and smothered them in the sauce. They were beautiful. I think we all ate these, as well.

Baked Manicotti for Women Who Are In Love With My Husband

Sauce

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 small finely diced onion
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped.
1 28 ounce can of San Marzano Tomatoes
1 cup of chicken broth or water (use as needed to thin sauce)
1 teaspoon of sugar
1/2 teaspoon of salt
5 large fresh basil leaves, slivered

Filling

2 cups fresh whole-milk ricotta cheese or one 15-ounce container whole-milk ricotta cheese
1 cup 1/4-inch cubes mild imported provolone cheese (provola) or sharp domestic provolone cheese
2 tablespoons plus 3/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
A pinch of salt
1/4 teaspoon coarsely ground black pepper
5 large fresh basil leaves, slivered

Manicotti

1 pound manicotti (large tubular pasta)
1 tablespoon olive oil

Preparation

Sauce

Put olive oil in a medium-hot cast iron fry pan (or pan of your choosing), add onions and garlic, for about 2 minutes. Don't over cook them. Add tomatoes. If they are whole, you can cut them into pieces in the pan to help them release their juices. I like my sauce with a little chunk to it, but if you don't you can run it through a food mill, although I don't need one more extra dish to wash.

Add salt and sugar and about 1/3 or the broth. Turn heat down to a simmer, cover and let sauce simmer for 25-30 minutes or so. If the sauce is a little thick, add another third of the broth, as necessary. Let simmer for another 15-20 minutes. Turn off heat and add slivers of basil.

Filling

Place ricotta in medium bowl. Mix in provolone cubes, 2 tablespoons grated Parmesan, and black pepper. Season with salt. (You can make the sauce and filling a day ahead. Just chill in the fridge).

Puttin' It All Together

Cook manicotti in large pot of boiling salted water until somewhat firm and about 3/4 cooked, 7 minutes or so. Using a big slotted spoon, transfer manicotti from pot to foil-lined baking sheet and cool.

Brush olive oil over bottom of 13x9x2-inch glass baking dish. Spread 3 tablespoons sauce over the bottom. Using teaspoon, fill each of 12 manicotti with about 1/3 cup cheese mixture. Arrange stuffed pasta in single layer in prepared dish and spoon remaining sauce over. (The stuffed manicotti can be made about two hours ahead before it starts to get soggy. Just cover it well and let it sit on the counter until your ready.)

A tip about stuffing manicotti: I find stuffing manicotti to be a bit precious. I generally use a teaspoon, but some people use a pastry bag. Whatever. But if you find some of the manicotti splits or breaks (If you over-cook it), it's still easy to fix. Slit broken or partially split manicotti all the way up, so you have a flat piece of pasta. Lay it on the counter. Put filling on one end and just roll the sheet up around the filling, like you are rolling a cigarette. It looks exactly like a perfectly filled manicotti and no one will know the difference. It will not fall apart when picked up with a spatula after baking.

Preheat oven to 350°F. Sprinkle remaining 3/4 cup Parmesan atop sauce. Bake manicotti uncovered until heated through and sauce is bubbling on bottom of dish, about 20 minutes. Let manicotti stand 5 minutes and serve.

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My Sordid Confession (Served Up with Mario Batali's Cacciatore)

So, we are going out to play on the playground yesterday and Lucy really wanted to wear this dress that she loves because her father loves her in it. And she looks just beautiful in it. Really.

And this is great, except I knew she was just going to get it filthy and I was kind of hoping it wouldn't be in rags by the time she started school in September. Not to mention that I am, in fact the world's worst housekeeper and laundress, so I have no shot of getting out a big grease/ink/grass/propane/red wine/Kool Aid/blood/mud/you-name-it stain out of said dress.

That and - here's where I make a sordid confession - I have this little disorder that I have kept a kinda-secret (Okay, I have more than one disorder. Who am I trying to kid?). David knows about it and I've worked on it with my therapist, but other than that, this is not the kind of thing you brag about at industry functions and family reunions.

Then, I passed it on to my daughter and bang! - I have to deal with it. Right out there in the open. Parenting sucks that way. I really tried not to pass it on to her. I tried doing everything the opposite or reverse or backwards, but it must be encoded into her DNA, cause she's just like Mama.

We, Lucy and I, like to save things.

And by save things, I mean we like to get things brand new and then, like, never use them. That way they can always remain in their perfect, unfettered state and never be worn-down, sullied, bruised, creased, dirtied, folded, bent, or worked into any other unseemly man-handled condition. Oh yes, we like to use things, but only if they aren't totally special or we have a back-up of the special thing, a perfect replica waiting in a drawer in the wings, or if the special thing belongs to someone else. Then, we can have at it.


Don't get me wrong, I intend to use that one gorgeous, expensive, cool-looking Williams Sonoma pot holder. But when company comes. Or I cook a dinner for Stephen King. Or Gael Greene. Or when the Food Network people come to see me cook a demo for them. Or when pigs fly. But dammit, I'm going to use that awesome potholder someday. I'll just keep it right here for safe keeping until the perfect opportunity comes.

Except the perfect opportunity never comes. And the pot holder sort of molts and discolors from years of sitting alone in a drawer. And I continue to use my cheap ugly pot holders.

This strategy has worked similarly for Lucy. At Easter, she and Edie got these big chocolate Easter bunnies in their baskets. Edie, glutton that she is (like David, of course), sat right down and power-chowed that Easter Bunny. By 9:30 in the morning that bunny was dust. Not one ounce of hesitation.

Lucy, on the other hand, held the package in her hands. Admired the beautiful box. Opened the cover just a bit to peek in at the beautiful chocolate bunny. She held it. Stroked it. Made it sing. Then, when she thought the warm room might actually make the bunny melt, she demanded that I put it in the freezer immediately.

Every day, I'd say to her, "Lucy, don't you want to eat some of your bunny?" And she would say, "No, I want to save it."

Little did she know that every night after she had gone to sleep, her father would open the freezer and snap off a piece of ear. A nose. A tiny foot. Within a week, David had eaten the entire bunny. And Lucy had forgotten all about it, never having tasted a bit of it.

In this house, Edie and David make out the best. Their motto: you snooze, you lose. They are unapologetic.

So, I've been making an effort to encourage Lucy to just use things. Trying to explain to her that the world is full of plenty, not scarcity. That there will be more Hello Kitty stickers after all the Hello Kitty Stickers in her drawer get used. That things are there to be used, not be attached to. That what is important is us, our love, our lives, our health, our joy, our time together. The things, they come and go.

And I'm explaining it to myself, as well, that there are more pot holders in this world, that perfection is not important, that enjoying things and people are, that holding onto things prevents me from embracing new things, that this is not the legacy I want to pass on to my girls. I hear all of it in my head and for the most part, it has been working. I'm using the potholder. And Lucy has been admiring less and digging in and using things more.

But occasionally, we slip into our old ways. Yesterday when I saw Lucy wearing the new dress she loves so much, I faltered. I wanted her to save that dress, keep it clean and new and perfect for that perfect up-coming occasion because as David says full of sarcasm, "You're afraid we won't be able to buy another $8 dress from Target, which is ridiculous."

Okay, I know. I'm an idiot.

But I thought I had her. Lucy was considering my arguments and my logic and considering taking off the new dress and swapping it for the older one I was holding in my hand. I had her thinking about it.

And then she put her hand up to stop me, like she was Diana Ross or something (Stop! In the name of love, before you break my heart...) and said in the most assured voice I've ever heard come out of her little body, "Mommy, you worry about yourself and I'll worry about me."

She wore the dress. The grasshopper surpasses her teacher.

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I may have forgotten and given you a chicken cacciatore recipe in the past few months, but this one is my take on Mario Batali's recipe. I really like it. Wholesome. Comforting. It's lovely. You should try it. And the sauce is also very good and very simple, although I prefer mine, because well, it's mine. (I also like this old post. So, it's worth a look-back.)



Pollo alla Cacciatora
Serves 4 people and a couple kids

2 cloves garlic, minced
1 branch rosemary, leaves only, minced
salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
one 3-pound chicken, cut into 8 serving pieces, rinsed and patted dry (or just the pieces you like, breasts and legs work just fine)
2 large yellow onions, coarsely chopped
1 pound portobella mushrooms, stems removed, cut into 1-inch cubes
4 ounces pancetta, cut into 1/2 inch dice
4 ribs celery, cut into 1 inch pieces
2 cups Basic Tomato Sauce (recipe below)
1 cup dry white wine
1 cup chicken stock
pinch of sugar
pinch of hot red pepper flakes

Night before:

In a large bowl, combine the garlic, rosemary, salt and pepper to taste, and add enough olive oil to make a somewhat dry paste (3 to 4 tablespoons). Add the chicken and rub the paste evenly over the pieces of chicken. Cover and refrigerate.

Next morning:

In a dutch oven, heat 1/4 cup olive oil over high heat until smoking. Brush the excess rub from the bird, and sear the chicken pieces, in batches if necessary, until browned on all sides. Transfer to a plate lined with paper towels. Place in fridge. Feel good your dinner for tonight is nearly prepped.

About 50 minutes before you want to eat:

Take chicken out of fridge. Bring to room temperature. Add the onions, mushrooms, pancetta, and celery to a stock pot and cook until the onions are golden brown and the pancetta has rendered its fat, about 8 minutes. Drain off the excess oil, then add the tomato sauce (use this recipe below from Mario Batali or this one, The Yummy Mummy's "Never Buy A jar Again" Marinara, or use the stuff from a jar, but please don't ever tell me about it. My head might explode) and wine, stirring with a wooden spoon to dislodge the browned bits from the bottom of the pot. Add the stock, sugar, and red pepper flakes and bring to a boil.

Put chicken to the pot, cover, and cook for 20 minutes. Uncover and cool until cooked through, about 15 to 20 minutes more. Transfer the chicken to a festive platter, top with the sauce, and serve.



Mario Batali's Basic Tomato Sauce
From Molto Italiano

1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 Spanish onion, cut into 1/4 inch dice
4 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced
3 tablespoons chopped fresh thyme
1/2 medium carrot, finely shredded
two 28-ounce cans whole tomatoes
salt

1. In a 3-quart saucepan, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the onion and garlic and cook until soft and light golden brown, 8 to 10 minutes. Add the thyme and carrot and cook until the carrot is soft, about 5 minutes.

2. Add the tomatoes, with their juice, and bring to a boil, stirring often. Lower the heat and simmer until as thick as hot cereal, about 30 minutes. Season with salt. This sauce can be refrigerated for up to 1 week or frozen for 6 months.

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