Manicotti

The Christmas Eve Dinner Tradition in my family

is homemade manicotti from scratch including the shell.

Before the holidays my husband and I had several

practice runs of manicotti, all of which, I think turned out

good but yet I still was not totally satisfied.

As I was preparing the grocery list for the "big" shop

before the holidays I decided on a little twist for the

manicotti that I just knew would make it GREAT!

For the Meat Manicotti I used chicken, feta sausage

and sundried tomatoes as the base instead of the normal

meatball mixture.

For the cheese I used a three cheese mixuture: parmesean,

ricotta and mozarella but the secret ingredient was goat

cheese.

In my opinion, this batch of manicotti was the best one!

The cheese ones were so creamy and delicious and the

meat was a little spicy and full of great flavors.

Dinner was great but laughing around the table with my family

was even better!!!

Making Manicotti

The Shell - made one at a time.

The mixture is placed toward the end and then you roll.

A full pan - yum!

The table was set awaiting the family's arrival.

My sister came up with a great idea. Instead of using

the regular place holders we put an object near each

seat representing that person. In the photo above

you can see the small pair of binoculars for my husband

who loves birdwatching. I loved it because it added such

a personal touch to the table.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

to you and your family!!