Saturday was one of those days that required pajama pants.  It was gloomy.  It was rainy.  All I wanted to do was curl up on the couch with a blanket and a Harry Potter marathon with a mug of hot tea.  I certainly didn’t want to get up off my lazy behind and make dinner.

I was thankful I had this planned for dinner that night.  Just throw everything in the crockpot.  A few hours later the house smelled wonderful and it was time to eat.

As I promised yesterday, here is the freezer-friendly spinach manicotti recipe.

A couple tricks I’ve learned from making any dish that requires you to stuff the pasta:

• I add a little oil to the cooking water.  I know this is normally a no-no because I’ve heard it prevents the sauce from adhering to the pasta.  But I always had a problem with my cooked shells sticking together after I drained and cooled them.  Adding a little oil prevents this.
• I slightly undercook my pasta by about two minutes less than the shortest recommended cooking time.  This makes the pasta easier to handle, prevents tearing as you’re trying to add the filling, and prevents the pasta from getting mushy when you finish baking the finished dish in the oven.
• Filling manicotti shells is a pain in the butt.  If you do a lot of cake or cookie decorating, you may have piping bags on hand.  These work great!  However, if you don’t you can do like I do and scoop your filling into a plastic storage bag, snip a corner off, and voila!  You have a homemade piping bag.  Again, I like the Ziploc vacuum seal bags for this because they are more heavy duty and won’t tear at the seams.

I prefer homemade spaghetti sauce over store bought.  I don’t care what Ragu or Prego say on TV, they don’t taste like homemade.  However, for a dish like this where you’ve got a lot of other things going on and the sauce is not necessarily the star of the show, I will use store bought and doctor it up with some of my own ingredients.  If you look closely at the picture, you’ll notice a few chunks of meat.  I added that for the Carnivore Husband so he wouldn’t complain about being served spinach manicotti.  I always go for the big 26-ounce cans of sauce on the bottom shelf that are a couple dollars cheaper than the jars positioned at eye-level  (grocery stores are sneaky like that).

For your convenience, I’ve added freezing instructions to the notes section of the recipe.

If the thought of making a cheesecake on Valentine’s Day for your beloved intimidates you, then this recipe has all the pizzazz without all the work.  You can even simplify the recipe a step further and use refrigerated cookie dough for the crust rather than making your own from scratch.  I promise I won’t tell and no one will be the wiser.

This “pizza” is basically a big giant chocolate chip cookie smothered with sweetened mascarpone cheese and glazed, fresh strawberries.  I can think of nothing better to smother a giant cookie with.

A word of caution, make sure your beloved doesn’t have any nut allergies before serving this.  I almost killed my neighbor on Saturday night.  Okay, that is an exaggeration.  I didn’t almost kill her.  But I completely forgot she told me she was allergic to nuts and I served her up a big ol’ piece in the middle of our dominoes game.  Luckily, she figured it out after the first bite.  Crisis averted.  However, do double check or leave the nuts out altogether.  I would much rather you spend Valentine’s Day in each other’s arms than sitting by their side in the emergency room.

Wouldn’t you?

As a kid, those single-serving plastic pudding cups were a perfectly acceptable dessert to serve guests after a meal.   Granted, that meal was probably a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with the crusts removed and cut into quarters.  But I wonder at what age does that stop being okay?

As an adult, people come to expect a little more from you.  Especially when you are an adult with a food blog.  Let me rephrase that – the people who actually know you have a food blog come to expect a little more from you.  The Husband is the worst.  When I volunteered to make dessert for my Dad’s birthday a few weeks ago, I knew a six pack of pudding cups from the grocery store wasn’t going to cut it.  My parents probably would have been very gracious about it, kept their mouths shut, and eaten it just to be polite.  The Husband would have called me on it without blinking an eye.

“Really?  This is what we’re having for dessert?”

I’ve created a monster.

And honey, if you’re reading this – I love you!

Chocolate pudding made from scratch, it turns out, is a totally acceptable dessert to serve guests as an adult.  Especially when it has a little espresso powder mixed in and topped with a dollop of real whipped cream.  Suddenly it’s not a kid’s treat anymore.

This recipe calls for Dutch process cocoa powder.  If you’ve never heard of Dutch process cocoa powder, then you may be wondering how it differs from regular cocoa powder.  Cocoa powder in and of itself is finely ground cocoa beans that have been roasted and dried.  The powder is acidic and if you’ve ever stuck your finger into a container expecting it to taste like Nestle Quick, you know it has a very sharp and bitter taste.

Dutch process cocoa powder has been treated with an alkalizing agent to remove the acidity, making it neutral.  It is thought to improve the flavor when combined with other ingredients in addition to making it easier to dissolve into liquids. Usually, a recipe requiring Dutch process cocoa powder will specifically state it in the ingredients list.  So don’t feel like you have to run right out and buy a box.  It can actually be hard to find (I can only think of two stores in my area that carry it and one of them ain’t Wal-Mart) and it is more expensive than regular cocoa powder.