By Ordinary school week, which I mean in the best possible way. The kind of week that makes up most of a life — waking up and doing the work and coming home and eating dinner and doing homework and going to bed and doing it again. I am good at these weeks. Some people need the extraordinary to feel alive. I can feel alive in the ordinary if the ordinary is well-organized and the food is good.
Chemistry this week: bonding. Ionic bonds, covalent bonds, the way atoms share or take electrons depending on their electronegativity. I explained it to Kayla at dinner on Wednesday because she asked what I was studying and I have found that explaining things to Kayla sharpens my own understanding, because Kayla asks the kind of questions that reveal the gaps in your knowledge. She asked why atoms want to be stable. I said because everything wants to be stable. She said that was sad. I said I did not think it was sad, I thought it was the whole premise of chemistry. She went back to her drawing.
Mama made baked chicken on Wednesday, which is the Wednesday rule. Baked chicken and rice with a simple pan sauce that she makes from the drippings — a little butter, a little flour, chicken broth, and a patience that I am still building. She said her mother taught her that the best sauces come from what is already in the pan. You do not start from nothing, she said. You use what is there.
I wrote that down too. The notebook is filling up. MawMaw says things that are about cooking but also about life. Mama says things that are about cooking but also about life. I am starting to think cooking IS life, or at least a very good metaphor for it, and I am going to be a very good doctor and also a very good cook, and these two things will turn out to be related.
Mama’s line stayed with me all week — you don’t start from nothing, you use what’s there — and it kept surfacing every time I sat down to study those electron diagrams, atoms pulling toward stability with whatever they already had. The recipe I keep coming back to when I think about that kind of cooking is this classic cheese manicotti: simple components, layered with patience, built from what a good kitchen already holds. It is not a Wednesday baked chicken, but it carries the same spirit — the kind of dinner that makes an ordinary week feel like enough.
Classic Cheese Manicotti
Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 40 min | Total Time: 1 hour | Servings: 6
Ingredients
- 12 manicotti shells
- 2 cups whole-milk ricotta cheese
- 2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese, divided
- 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese, divided
- 1 large egg
- 2 tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
- 3 cups marinara sauce, divided
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
Instructions
- Cook the pasta. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cook manicotti shells for 6–7 minutes, until just shy of al dente. Drain, drizzle with olive oil to prevent sticking, and lay flat on a baking sheet to cool.
- Make the filling. In a large bowl, stir together ricotta, 1 1/2 cups mozzarella, 1/4 cup Parmesan, egg, parsley, garlic powder, salt, and pepper until well combined.
- Preheat and prep the pan. Heat oven to 375°F. Spread 1 cup of marinara sauce evenly across the bottom of a 9x13-inch baking dish.
- Fill the shells. Using a small spoon or a piping bag, carefully fill each manicotti shell with the ricotta mixture. Arrange filled shells in a single layer over the sauce in the baking dish.
- Top and cover. Spoon the remaining 2 cups of marinara sauce over the filled shells. Sprinkle with the remaining 1/2 cup mozzarella and 1/4 cup Parmesan. Cover the dish tightly with foil.
- Bake covered. Bake for 25 minutes covered, then remove the foil and bake an additional 15 minutes until the cheese is bubbly and lightly golden at the edges.
- Rest before serving. Let the manicotti rest for 5 minutes before serving. Garnish with additional parsley if desired.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 420 | Protein: 24g | Fat: 18g | Carbs: 42g | Fiber: 3g | Sodium: 720mg