Manicotti

This is actually the second version of manicotti that I've made over the past few weeks.  Surprisingly enough, this more vegetarian version was my favorite of the two.  The first version was a chicken and sausage manicotti. 

 The first step was to make the bechamel.  The mise, butter, flour, milk, white pepper, cayenne pepper, nutmeg and salt.

 The butter and flour went into a pan to form a roux.

After the roux had formed and cooked for a bit I added the milk and brought the mixture to a boil.

 The roux did its work and thickened the mixture and that is when I put the seasonings in.

 Second step was to make the filling.  This is the stuff for the cheese portion of the filling.  Ricotta, egg, parmesan and gruyere.

 The cheeses all mixed together.

 Now for the cooked portion of the filling.  Salt, pepper, chard, sage, butternut squash, leeks, red pepper flakes, vegetable stock and sugar.

 I chopped up the leeks and squash and sautted them off in some butter for a little bit.

 Then the chicken broth and sugar went in and I covered the pan until the liquid had evaporated and the squash was soft.  The entire process took about 5 minutes.

 Next the chard and the red pepper flakes went in.  and cooked until the chard and wilted, which can be seen in the picture below.

 Once the vegetable portion of the filling had cooled I combined it with the cheese and stuffed it inside of some cooked flat lasagna sheets, which I didn't get a picture of because I assume you know what cooking past looks like.  I rolled up the pasta sheets and put them into a miniture casserole dish which had the bottom covered in a bit of the bechamel.  Once the pasta was in the pan I topped it with a bit more of the bechamel and some grated gruyere cheese.

 The mixture went into a 425 degree oven for about 20 minutes and this was the result.

The side dish for the evening was a balsamic walnut salad.  As I was putting this together I wished I had some blue cheese to put in here as well.  The cheese would have made this salad about 10 million times better.  Here I've got shallots, grape seed oil, balsamic vinegar, white wine vinegar, dijon mustard, salt, pepper, walnuts and a green mix that has spinach, frisee, arugula, radicchio and all kinds of other greens in it.

The final plating.