ISO: ISO Joe, I made the manicotti last night.....

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randi

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I made the sauce thursday evening. I've never added rosemary to a red sauce before and just loved the subtle flavor that resulted. It's a wonderful sauce and I'll be making it again for many different dishes.

I need to hone my crepe skills. some of them browned and some did not, are they supposed to brown a bit? I put the dish together after my guests arrived, tossing the cooked crepes on the island while a friend piped the filling in, rolled a placed in pan. It was fun for everyone. The finished manicotti was just the best ever. All my friends loved it and can't wait for me to make again. The recipe was requested by the cooks.

To sum it up, the recipe is to live for! As they praised me over and over I kept telling them that the credit goes to Joe for sharing an old family recipe. Thank you for a memorable dinner!

 
That is so gratifying to hear. I've given that recipe out often but very few ever try it. Must be

crepe-o-phobia. So take all the credit yourself, please, and I'll raise a glass of Chianti in your honor.

The crepes should brown a little if possible, but it's not that important. The trick is finding the right flame level for the pan. The rosemary in the sauce was actually an accident that worked out well, and now I always add it.

It's definitely a good group project. I'm so glad your dinner was a success!

 
I'd love to try it, just trying to figure out if it would scale down well....have you done it in

smaller amounts?

 
well, pour me a glass too, I could use a "hair of the dog" '-))) ..... after dinner

we all agreed that crepes make a much better manicotti. so much more delicate than the heavier, pasta tubes. I'll be using them again with different fillings.

as for the rosemary, don'tcha just love those kinds of accidents!

 
Curious, I made the full sauce recipe, put some in the freezer but I...

halved the cheese filling for the sake of time. I also doubled the balsamella and put some in the bottom of the pan and swirled some red sauce into it.

it's a fantastic recipe!

 
I guess it's the crepes that have me scared, I've never made a recipe with 18 eggs! As the crepe

recipe doesn't call for baking powder, etc, I'm thinking it could be cut to 1/3...right? The sauce I could freeze and surely scale down the rest. I've made a different recipe with crepes from McCall's Cooking School, it was wonderful and my crepes didn't brown much that I remember, just spottily and only on one side.

 
I'm with you Curious. I printed the recipe out last week but am going to scale>>>

waayyy back. It's the crepe part that would not be easy to do so I thought I'd use another crepe recipe that is more manageable unless Joe thinks that's a bad idea. I know you can freeze crepes so maybe that's an idea. We are going to be getting a mini Honey Baked Ham soon and I think this would be perfect with it. Can't wait to try it!

 
Curious, by all means cut the crepe recipe in thirds. I actually tripled my great-aunt's

recipe in the first place, so you'll be restoring it to it's original size. She used almost twice as much flour, but I've cut it back to just enough to barely hold them together. You could add a few more tablespoons for confidence and they'll still be tender.

If you scale back the sauce and filling to 1/4, you'll have about 10 manicotti and enough extra crepe batter to cover any mishaps.

These crepes really are easy because you don't flip them--just slide them out of the pan. The top stays soft. The only drawback is that, if you don't have a lot of counter space, you have to fill them as you go because they're too gooey to stack up, but that's where the kitchen elves come in.

 
the crepes were very easy to make, just make sure your pan is hot enough, I made sure

I had plenty of batter in case of mishaps. sometimes I put too much batter in the pan and just poured out the excess.

Joe is right, it's much easier if you have kitchen elves putting in the fillng as the crepes come out. it took about 15 - 20 min to assemble the manicotti.

 
Orchid, I'm sure any crepe recipe would do, but these really aren't hard, >>>

and they're very eggy and cooked on only one side, so they just kind of blend into the filling.

 
Thanks, and no wonder my crepes weren't brown on the underside, they weren't turned. Been awhile....

 
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