Four Cheese Baked Manicotti

The real estate market does not take August off, no matter how much August wants it to. The heat in Tampa is now a physical presence — you do not walk through it, you wade through it. I showed five properties this week and closed on two. My numbers for the year are strong. I am building something here, brick by brick, sale by sale, the same way Mama built the bakery and Baba built his reputation on the docks: through showing up every day and doing the work and refusing to stop even when stopping seems reasonable.

School starts next week. Alexander will be a senior — my son, a senior in high school, which means he will be applying to colleges soon and I will have to pretend that the thought of him leaving does not make me want to lock the doors and hide all the car keys. He wants to study something with computers, which is vague but pointed in the direction of the future. I told him to follow his interests. He said his interest is making money. I said that is your father talking. He got quiet. I got quiet. We do not talk about Mark often, but when we do, the silence afterward is the shape of everything we are not saying.

Sophia starts ninth grade next week, which means high school, which means she is now a teenager in high school and I am a mother of a teenager in high school and I need someone to explain to me how I got here because I was twenty-five approximately twenty minutes ago. She is excited. She is terrified. She is Sophia, which means she is performing confidence while secretly rehearsing disaster scenarios. I know this because I do the same thing before every open house.

I spent Sunday at Mama's, as always. The bakery is slower in August — the tourists thin out and the regulars come back and the bakery returns to what it really is: a Greek kitchen on Dodecanese Boulevard where the community comes to eat and argue and be fed. Mama was making tyropita — cheese pies, simpler than spanakopita but just as good in their own way. Feta and ricotta and egg, folded in phyllo, baked until golden. I ate three and brought a dozen home for the week.

I made a Greek-style baked fish tonight — whole branzino, scored and stuffed with lemon slices and oregano and garlic, roasted until the skin is crispy and the flesh is white and flaky. The fish was from the market on Armenia Avenue, which is not as good as the fish in Tarpon Springs but is close enough for a Tuesday. I served it with roasted potatoes and a squeeze of lemon and a drizzle of olive oil that would have made a cardiologist weep. Alexander ate the whole fish including the crispy skin, which tells me I raised him right. A person who eats the crispy skin of a roasted fish is a person who understands that the best parts of life are often the parts you have to work for.

I came home from Mama’s with a dozen tyropita and the smell of warm cheese still in my hair, and somewhere between unpacking the box and watching Alexander eat two before I could stop him, I started thinking about all the ways cheese and heat and a good oven can make a hard week feel manageable. The branzino was Tuesday’s answer; this four cheese baked manicotti is Sunday’s — the same impulse toward something golden and baked and generous, just with pasta instead of phyllo. Mama would approve, I think, or at least she would eat it without comment, which in her language is the same thing.

Prep Time: 30 minutes | Cook Time: 45 minutes | Total Time: 1 hour 15 minutes | Servings: 6

Ingredients

12 manicotti pasta tubes
2 cups whole-milk ricotta cheese
1 1/2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese, divided
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese, divided
1/2 cup shredded provolone cheese
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 tablespoons fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped
1 teaspoon dried Italian seasoning
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes (optional)
3 cups marinara sauce, divided
2 tablespoons olive oil

Instructions

Preheat and prepare. Preheat your oven to 375°F. Lightly grease a 9x13-inch baking dish with olive oil and spread 1 cup of marinara sauce evenly across the bottom. Set aside.
Cook the pasta. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cook manicotti tubes for 2 minutes less than the package directions — they should be pliable but still firm. Drain carefully and arrange in a single layer on a lightly oiled baking sheet to prevent sticking.
Make the filling. In a large bowl, combine ricotta, 1 cup of the mozzarella, 1/4 cup of the Parmesan, all of the provolone, eggs, garlic, parsley, Italian seasoning, salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes if using. Stir until fully combined and smooth.
Fill the manicotti. Transfer the cheese filling to a large zip-top bag and snip one corner, or use a small spoon. Carefully fill each manicotti tube from both ends, distributing the filling evenly. Do not overfill — the pasta will expand slightly as it bakes.
Assemble the dish. Arrange the filled manicotti in a single layer over the sauce in the prepared baking dish. Pour the remaining 2 cups of marinara sauce evenly over the top, making sure to cover all the pasta. Scatter the remaining 1/2 cup mozzarella and 1/4 cup Parmesan over the sauce.
Bake covered. Cover the dish tightly with aluminum foil and bake for 30 minutes, until the sauce is bubbling around the edges and the pasta is fully tender.
Bake uncovered. Remove the foil and bake for an additional 12 to 15 minutes, until the cheese on top is melted, golden, and beginning to brown in spots. Let rest for 10 minutes before serving.
Serve. Garnish with additional fresh parsley and a light dusting of Parmesan. Serve directly from the baking dish with crusty bread and a simple green salad.

Nutrition (per serving)

Four Cheese Baked Manicotti — Mama’s Cheese Pies Inspired This One