Lazy cooking

My life like every other person I know, is insanely busy. It's nice to have a home cooked meal, but sometimes you get home late or have odd hours and don't feel like cooking. Crock pots are fun for soups, but you can't make every meal in a crock pot. Making food in advance is easy because all you have to do is put in the oven or heat up.


I tried a variation of my dad's "stuffaroni" recipe (aka stuffed manicotti) and prepared it a day before I planned to bake it. I browned some ground beef and onion and seasoned. Once the ground beef cooled I added an egg, bread crumbs, spinach and Parmesan, and salt & pepper.

The egg and bread crumbs hold everything together. I stuffed manicotti shells with my meat mixture and lined them in a 9 x 13 bake pan.

I had some left over ground beef mixture so I mixed it with 1 large jar of marinara sauce and seasoned the sauce up with garlic, basil, and oregano. I let the sauce cool slightly and stored it in a tupperware container.

Easy dinner: Cover the stuffed manicotti noodles with the marinara sauce, sprinkle with fresh Parmesan and bake at 350 for 45 minutes covered, followed by another 10 minutes uncovered.
It makes a lot- it's AMAZING left overs and it's DELISH :)