Stuffed 3 Cheese Manicotti, Italian Meatballs, Garlic Parmesan Focaccia, and Tomato Salad

Manicotti, stuffed with a three cheese blend of ricotta, mozzarella, and parmesan, covered in marinara and baked in the oven. Parmesan garlic focaccia, half covered with pepperoni for two variations. Italian meatballs served with marinara, and finally, a tomato basil feta salad drizzled with a balsamic glaze

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#manicotti #italianrecipes #focaccia

Hi everyone, Elsie Jensen here. Tonight we are going to make some three cheese stuffed manakotti. Um a faukatcha with I think little pepperonis on it. Um and then we’re going to prep up some Italian meatballs to go with the manakotti and then make kind of a tomato feta salad and cut up some fruit. So let’s start by getting our base for our meatballs made. We’re going to make our penade. So, I’ve got some half and half here. And we are just going to soak each slice of bread with just about enough. You know, it’s like around a third cup. Um, with this kind of with our half and half. Can also use cream. Here we go. And you want it enough to make them soggy, but not where they’re just oozing milk or cream. Okay. So, we’ve got our two slices of bread. And I’m using two slices because I have two pounds of meat. And then we are going to add in two eggs. Again, an egg per pound of meat. And where’s my spices? We’re going to use some Italian spices. So, I’ve got um this is just an Italian spice blend. And I’m going to use about a tablespoon or a little more, tablespoon and a half. A good amount of Italian seasoning. And then some garlic salt. We’re going to shake in about a teaspoon and a half of it. And this is going to be the herby pinade for our meatballs that we’ll be having with our three cheese manakotti. Um and then we’re going to bake up a faukatcha that I have um right now proofing in the oven and make a tomato feta salad and some fresh fruit. I think today we’re doing kiwis and strawberries. So, I’m going through right now with my penade and I am going through and kind of squishing it through my fingers to create this base. Um, just making sure all those pieces of that bread get broke broken up. You want to use a soft bread for this. You don’t want to use a really tough crust bread like an Italian like a crusty Italian or um sourdough. It just doesn’t work as well. Here we go. And then I’m adding in a pound of ground beef and a pound of Italian sausage. Okay. And I’m going to go through there just like I was doing with my penade. And I’m going to squeeze it through my fingers to kind of make sure both meats get incorporated into the each other and all those seasonings make it around. And that penade is going to be my binder for my meatballs, which I love over using like a breadcrumb and egg. There we go. So, we’re just going to smush it up and squeeze it through. And then every so often, I’m just going to kind of flip it around and just make sure everything gets mixed in as evenly as possible. Now, meatballs are something that you just kind of have to throw your hands in and get dirty with. So, we’re just going to keep mixing until I can see that everything is kind of created a homogeneous mixture. It’s all kind of one versus you can see the different meats or the bread parts. There we go. So, we’re going to kind of there mush them up a little bit more. And now we kind of have this nice meat paste which is going to be the base for our meatballs. So, I’m going to grab my baking sheet over here, and I’m just going to roll out about, you know, roughly pingpong golf ball size uh meatballs here. Now, you can always go bigger or smaller. Uh smaller would need a shorter baking time, and vice versa, bigger would need a longer baking time. And we’ll roll these up. You can tell you neither nor play. Whatever. Whatever. This is my You know, one of these days I’m gonna have I’m going to bring a golf ball or ping pong. I’m going to bring both in here and we’ll have my visual representation. What would you say these are? I want fatty. I always try to make them equal as possible, but you know, somehow I always start with one size and by the end they’re always like a different size. And my biggest thing is if I try to make small meatballs, I give up halfway through and then they get bigger and bigger. You just got to give, you know, grab some and roll around. I know some people I, you know, they talk about using like ice cream scoops or the meatball scoops. I have just never had any luck with that. I don’t have luck with that with cookie dough either. Um it just never seems to come out nicely for me. Um so just using my hand works well and you know cooking cooking is messy. So these again these are our Italian meatballs. They’re made with half um a pound of ground beef, a pound of Italian sausage, two eggs, two slices of bread, about a third cup of you know half and half to soak that bread in. Um and Italian seasoning, garlic salt, and that is about it. But they are delicious. Using a penade over breadcrumbs gives you a much more tender um meatball. It doesn’t dry out in the middle. I feel like breadcrumbs were like such a thing. Everybody made their meatballs with it. But it really does make it like dry on the inside. Here we go. And almost down. Few more meatballs left. We’re going to see. Maybe I don’t need to have all these rows. I’ll spread them out. Give them a bit more space. They’re not like cookies. They’re actually going to seize up and shrink a little bit um each one as the natural like juices kind of bake out. Here we go. Grab all those last bits of meat. And then I’m going to just pop these to the side and give my hands a quick rinse. Okay. And now I’m going to turn my water up on high. I have it kind of simmering on low um because we’re going to put our manakotti in in just a second. But I’m going to pop these in my oven. I have my oven set to 400 because that’s what we’re going to bake our faukatcha on. But you could really um cook the meatballs anywhere between 350 and 400. Um they’re pretty versatile with the temperature you use. Just 350 will take a little bit longer. I’m going to put them down on the bottom because I again I want them to kind of cook more slow and not get as much heat or crispness on the top. Okay, we’re going to get I’ve got my water boiling here and I’m going to get my manakotti ready and then we’re going to make the cheese filling for the manakotti. Now, these noodles only boil for about four or so minutes. Um, once we get a nice kind of temperature here. Now, the trick is to be very careful with them so you don’t break them. Now, sometimes you can buy manatti and each one is like, you know, they’re like packed almost like taco shells. So, I’m just going to take them out and once my water is boiling, I’m going to place them in there. I think one time I bought a box of manakotti and they were all crushed. Actually give my hands a quick rinse again because I missed a spot on the back of my hands. Got some herbs still on there. There we go. Okay, that water should be in a full boil in just a second. Let’s start making our three cheese base for our manakotti. I’m going to be using ricotta as one cheese, parmesan, and mozzarella. So, I have those uh three cheeses that we’re going to be using here. Let me grab a spoon, too. And I can never seem to get these little wrappers off. I’m not going to be using all of this ricotta. I’m just going to use about half the tub. Um, this is a big tub of ricotta and you just need about 16 ounces. So, we’re going to reach in and I’m going to kind of scoop out what I think is about half, which is 16 ounces is roughly about two cups. That looks good. Okay, so I’ve got my ricotta in here and use full fat. Full fat ricotta just tastes so much better than um the like the diet I guess ricotta. You have a question. Will that man feed all seven? Yes. Well, right now we have Teddy is not really eating because of his tonslectomy. So, um he pro I’m hoping he’ll at least eat the inside of one. Jack will probably have about one. My husband doesn’t like pasta, so I don’t know if he’ll eat one or if he’ll try one. So, really, we’re feeding about four with it. Um, he’s going to eat the meatballs and the fkaca. So, there they’re different components that people will eat. If I was making just manakati for and no other parts to it, I would double it up, but they get pretty big. Um, so it’s not as little as it might look. We’re going to add in about a cup and a half or so. Not quite the full bag of Parmesan cheese, but you know, two/ird of it. And then we’re going to add in our mozzarella. And the same thing, about 2/3 of our mozzarella in here, cuz you want it to be nice and cheesy. And our um water is boiling here. I’m going to place these in um pretty gently. And remember, pasta does get bigger when you cook it. There we go. So, we’ll let that boil up. And thanks. And again, when I’m cooking, I am always trying to make sure that we don’t have very much in leftovers. And I’m normally I’m also cooking for my parents, but they are still out of town. Um, so it’s a little bit smaller crowd this week. Let’s mix all of that kind of base to it. You know what? I think I’m trying to judge how much. I think I’m going to add a bit more cheese for all of them because I want to make sure I have enough to go through. There we go. And now what I like to do is I season up my base so it’s not just plain three cheeses here. I want it to have a little bit of a spice in there. Um, and I because I think when things get too cheesy then it kind of it just too much there’s just too much going on. Like there’s just too much cheese. I know it’s hard to say, but I think you got to season it up. So I’m going to put about a tablespoon of Italian spices in here. And then we’re going to put in a big spoonful of pesto. And this pesto is going to give it just a wonderful flavor to it. Now, make sure you have a good tasting pesto. Um, I find most store-bought pestos are not very good. Um, but there’s two brands that I like. I like Costco’s brand, which I’m using right now, the Kirkland pesto, and I like Rana’s pesto. Those are the only two so far that I have found that I actually like. I feel like some can have just a funky taste. So, we’re going to add in kind of a heaping spoonfulish in there. And that’s going to really season up the ricotta as well. You could also add in chopped up spinach in here, fresh basil leaves, throw in a bunch of different little like herbs and flavors. They all will do great. And then I’m just going to do a quick sprinkle of garlic salt. You don’t need a lot in here. While ricotta is very mild and not very salty, both mozzarella and parmesan have salt in it, and that pesto has salt in it. So, I’m just going to add a little shake of it, like a half a teaspoon. But that’s just going to give you the rest of that kind of flavor. You have a question. Is your husband a picky eater? Yeah, he is. He’s gotten better with time. I will say he eats a lot more than he did when I met him. And if Well, I think he’s a picky eater. His father is even pickier. I just think, you know what? Like some people they just eat the same things and they go through. But he’s getting, I will say, he’s branching out more and more. Um, with time, he’s trying more vegetables and kind of giving him a kind of a a good a try. Sometimes I make him try it. And you know what? He starts to like it. For filling my manakati, I’m going to put it in the um a piping bag. If you don’t have a piping bag, you can use a Ziploc baggie. This is just going to make it a little bit easier to fill. I have tons of piping bags um because I was big into like cake decorating cupcakes for a while and I bought like a 200 bag set of it and I’m still going through them. So, we’re just going to fill this guy all the way up. And that’s just going to make it easier to pipe into the things. You could always spoon it in, but I would just try using like a Ziploc baggie to do it. That’s how I used to always decorate my cupcakes, too. Put it in a Ziploc baggie, cut the end, and Okay, let’s check on these noodles. I’m going grab my spatula out or my tongs out, and we’re just going to kind of lift them out. Again, we’re not cooking them till they’re completely done. They’ll do more of the cooking in the um oven. I think they still need about like 30 more seconds, but it’s about four minutes to get this guy ready and then we’re going to pull these out. I’m going to put them in here. Shake them off. That way they can start kind of cooling off and it’ll be a little bit easier to use. But you can see they’re a lot bigger now than when I put them in. Here we go. And I will say I feel like pasta is one of those things where I think people overestimate the amount of pasta a serving is. There’s one in here and I just cannot get it. There we go. So, we’ve got this off. I’m going to strain. Get rid of this pasta water. There we go. And these guys are going to be a little bit hot for a second. So, I’m just going to let them kind of cool until Okay, they’re about good for me. I’m always told that my hands are got like the best heat calluses and I don’t even feel lava. Okay, cutting off the tip of my piping bag. And just kind of like you’re filling a canoli or whatnot. We’re going to fill these and I’m going to pipe them through. So, and then we’ll lay them down in here. So, we’ll just kind of pipe through a little bit on each side. Make sure we fill it up. There we go. And then this will have all that good filling in there. You see they’re a bit smaller, so it would be kind of hard to um spoon it in. They’re not like shells where you can easily uh fill them up with a spoon. These one, you really got to kind of pipe it. I will say they’re like the dinner canoli, but they’re really easy and to do. Um, and you know, we’re doing this this nice filling, which is like a filling that you can do in um shells. I always flavor my uh lasagna filling up too when I’m making lasagna. Here we go. And you want to, again, I cook them. They’re still firm because we’re going to put we’ll put our sauce over it and then they’ll soak up more juices. But if you try to cook them till they’re tender, then they’re going to be really difficult to fill and you might break them. Question. What’s this type of pasta called? This is called manakotti. So, they’re just It almost looks like a giant uh ziti pasta. Here we go. So, just again piping it in there. So, we just squeeze it through. And you can see just the piping bag or if you use a ziploc bag, it just allows it to go so much faster. Question. Can you go over what’s in the fillings? Yes. So, I used about 16 ounces of full fat ricotta cheese. Um about I want to say two cups of mozzarella, two cups of parmesan cuz I ended up using the whole bags on those. Um and then we added in a heaping spoonful of pesto and about a tablespoon of Italian spices and about a teaspoon of garlic salt. Here we go. So, let’s get these last ones. And I think I made just the perfect amount. That’s always like when you get down and you don’t have extra. That’s always makes me happy because none’s going to waste. I’ve got one noodle left and I have just about enough for one. Here we go. So, again, we used a lot of cheese in here, so these are pretty filling. So, um, a little goes a long way. So, I’m just going to kind of slide that guy in here. So, we’ve got this whole first kind of base down and wash my hands just a smidge. And now, what we’re going to do is we are going to pour our sauce over it. I’m going to use just a marinara. Uh, you could make your own if you have lots of time. Um, but I found Rouse or Rayos. I always called it Rouse Ford until somebody told me it was Rayos, which makes more sense. It’s Italian. Is a delicious marinara. It’s one of my favorite storebought ones because it’s not overly sweet, but it’s it’s got and it’s not overly spiced. It’s very simple. We’re just going to cover these up with our uh marinara. And you want to make sure you’ve got it all nice layer over it because this is going to also help cook up those noodles. So, I’ve got another jar which I’m probably going to need. And I always say air on the side of having a little too much sauce than too little. I can never get jars open. this hack that I learned years ago. You just put a butter knife in and you just pop it in there until you let like a little bit of air out and then your jars should come off really easily. Here we go. So, we’ve got our delicious manakotti. Give it a good shake. And then I’m just going to sprinkle a little bit of cheese over the top of it. I’m not going to go crazy. not like a lasagna, but enough to kind of give it a nice little little something extra. So again, this is a pretty feeling filling dish because we are using a lot of cheese. You had a question about where the recipe, we will upload our video um on our page um on the link on our page so that you can always rewatch and cook along with me again. Um, I do send out recipe cards every week, but they’re for my members. Um, and we do about three a week for them, but for everyone that we offer for free is the video. So, after we’re done streaming, we do just uh a little bit of editing and upload it right away. Okay, I’m going to pop this in the oven to let it start cooking. These need about 20 minutes to cook to kind of soak up and make those noodles tender. And I am going to cook it at 400. So I’m going to put this on top. My meatballs are just about done. So when I put my faukatcha in, I’m going to take them out and I’m going to just mix them with the rest of that marinara sauce. So um we can then add them on later. Okay. in here. We’re going to make a lovely faukatcha. Let’s see. This one isn’t hot. So, I’ve got it. This is a yeast one. So, a lot of times I do sourdough or hybrid. This one is straight up yeast cuz I didn’t think about it until later today. Um, and it’s it’s a really simple. It’s my quick yeast bread, though. So, I used two tablespoons of yeast in it. And that’s going to give it a really quick rise. So, I made this just about an hour ago. um which is is nice because if I forget to make a bread, these are one of those recipes that I can kind of use instead. We’re going to pour a generous amount of olive oil over the top of this. This is going to give our faukatcha a nice crispy crust. So, it’s a good amount. And then this is always my favorite part. Um we’re going to kind of dimple it now with our fingers. And you can see it’s going to kind of drop down just a little bit because we’re kind of pushing some of those gases out. But I love this part because it’s just kind of feels good. There we go. So, I’ve got my lice dimples. And of course, your hands get pretty greasy with this. And now we are going to season it up. I’m going to do half um kind of like a pepperoni cheese fkacatcha and half just a garlic bread um faukatcha. So, first what I’m going to do is I’m going to sprinkle a little bit of garlic salt over all of it because you do want to flavor it up um with a little bit of spices so that it has a great flavor. So, just a really nice dusting over. Doesn’t need to go crazy. And then let me grab my pepper. fine pepper is just delicious on here. Um, kind of really makes it pop. And again, I’m just doing a light dusting. And I’m doing it on the base first so that these kind of seasonings will be stuck on that bread. Here we go. Okay. And let’s get our things. Let me get Can you use pizza dough for this? Uh, you can use pizza dough like a quick thing. It It might not give you as much of a pop, but I definitely think you could try to use a pizza dough um for it. It’s really simple to make. Um, but yeah, I think you could use one as long as you brought it out and let it kind of, you know, puff up a little bit. Especially if you maybe bought like the storebought p like this, you know, in the bakery area, you can get like pizza dough in a little baggie that the store has made. Um, you could definitely probably use this. So, I’m going to put sprinkle a little bit of mozzarella cheese over the whole thing. I’m not doing it crazy, not like a pizza. Um, because you you don’t want it to be super thick. And then I’m going to go over with my Parmesan, which I love on here. This actually crunches up a little bit more. Here we go. And then I’m going to do on the side that I’m doing kind of like a garlic cheesy bread side, I’m just going to do it just a smidge thicker. There we go. Okay. And then for the pepperonis, I’m using mini pepperonis because I think they just go a little bit better on a faukatcha than the fulls size ones. And they’re just cute. And I’m just going to kind of sprinkle them around on here. We had a question. Was lunch a hit today? It Yes, it was. Everybody really loved it. Um the I will say Teddy loved the soup, which I was so glad he ate some um because uh you know his tonslectomy and the sandwiches were everything pretty much got eaten up. The uh nectarine turnovers were amazing. Um my husband was very questionable about him because he’s not a fan of nectarines, but he said they were the best turnovers he’s ever had. And I was like, “Huh?” I’m like, “I made apple turnovers like a year ago. I don’t make them often.” Um but he’s told me I now have to make turnovers at least once a month. So I’ve already got ideas how to change it up um and make it in there. Okay. So, we’ve got our pepperoni. And then on my other side, I’m going to add there’s my Italian a little sprinkle of Italian spices over it. And then because I want a little bit more of that garlic pop, I’m going to put a little bit of that garlic salt on top of it. There we go. That’ll make it a little bit more of a garlicky bread. Put that right over here. And then we’re going to go pop this in the oven with the rest of our things. This takes about 12 to 15 minutes at 400°. Um, you know, depending on how golden brown you want it. So, I’m going to put this in, slide it in up top because again, our baked goods, we always want to be on top. And then I’m going to pour out my meatballs real quick. And then I’m going to move my manakotti down below. Um, since I got a good cheese melt on it, but I don’t want that cheese to burn. [Music] Okay, now I’m going to set my timer. I’m going to set it for 14 minutes, but again, it can be anywhere between 12 and 15. Let’s get our meatballs here. So, we’ve got our Italian meatballs, and what I’m going to do is we’re going to serve them along with our manakotti because my husband might die if he had to eat straight up manakati. And I’m going to just make a little put them with a little bit of sauce. Um, just to keep them moist. You definitely when you make homemade meatballs, you want to put them in a sauce after you bake them to keep them nice and moist, unless you’re going to pop them in the freezer. Um, a lot of times, you know, back in the day when I didn’t work from home, but I used to teach, I used to do big cooking weekends where I’d cook and meal prep for a whole week and meatballs were one of those things that I would prep up and pop in the freezer. I’d make a whole bunch at a time. You have a question on the foca. Could you put vegetables on top of it? You can put that that’s the beauty about fkaca. You can put anything under the sun on it. Um, I’ve made I have lots of different variations of faukatcha that I’ve done with different vegetables. I’ve even gone and made it prettyl looking. So, faukatcha is very versatile because it’s a very plain base of um dough. So, you can have sweet fkacas like I’ve seen the lemon blueberries, there’s the apple strusel uh faukatcha, and then you can go savory, you can go cheese, no cheese. Um, it’s actually a it’s a really versatile kind of thinner crusty bread that you can do a lot with. Let’s get this out of the way. And then I’m going to pour my marinara sauce over the remaining of it. Again, I don’t need a whole lot because we’re going to be serving it with our manakati that has it, but just enough to kind of keep them nice and moist and let them simmer in there. Did you have a question? Are you familiar with Portuguese cuisine at all? Um, you know what? I there’s only really one thing that I know about Portuguese. I make this um it’s a soup. It’s called Calo Verde that I make, which is a Portuguese soup that I love. Um, but I haven’t actually done a lot of Portuguese cooking, but now I’m kind of interested now that you mentioned it. Um, that’s I think the only real thing that I’ve made from there. Um, I’m trying to think if I’ve done anything else. Um, not that I can think of. Oh, you got a question. Can you go over what meat is in the meatballs? Yes. So, for my Italian meatballs, I like to do like a half ground beef and half Italian sausage. So, I have a pound of ground beef here and a pound of mild Italian sausage. I’m going to turn my burner here on low just to let it kind of simmer. Those meatballs are hot, so they will um work out. They’ll keep that sauce nice and warm. I’m going to make a quick kind of tomato and uh feta cheese and basil salad. Let me grab a bowl here for that. This one, this is probably going to be Eevee loves tomatoes and feta cheese, so this is a salad for her, so she’ll love it. But she’s probably going to love this meal because she’s always asking me for spaghetti and meatballs or some form of that. I’m going to cut my tomatoes in half. That way they can kind of pick up the balsamic glaze that I’m going to put on them. And you can cut them smaller if you want to, but I’m just getting in half. I’m using I’ve got some red tomatoes in here. This is just a mixture. And then these new tomatoes that Costco’s had all summer. They’re called tiki tomatoes. And they’re actually really delicious. Uh they’re a bit sweeter than a regular tomato. Um and they’re kind of like orange and purple, which I just think is always fun. I’m always the person who’s like the sucker for I get like the fun colored stuff. I think it’s, you know, a result of growing up in the the 90s where everything was 80, you know, I was born at the end of the 80s, but I’m a 90s kid. But everything uh was food dye and bright and colorful. Yeah. Gotta love it. You have a question. You do a vegetable garden this summer. I do have a vegetable garden going right now. I have about 10 tomato plants going. A whole bunch of herbs. Um two, no, four, six cucumber plants. Um and two, four, I’ve got uh I think four pepper plants. I know yesterday I picked my first pepper off. I was out there and um I made sure to water my plants yesterday because I’m really bad about watering them. And I have so many tomatoes now. I think in like a week or so I’m going to have like a hundred tomatoes. And I saw a little bit of cucumbers coming in. Um so we’ll have those. I have a few more peppers going. Um, my garden doesn’t get the best sun because I have this huge um, silver leaf maple tree that covers like the entire backyard. It is I think it was originally um, two maples that grew together, but I can’t even wrap my arms around it. It’s huge. I only say that My husband looked at me like, “No, it’s not.” I only say that because it’s like goes like this and it has two huge offshoots. Okay. My husband says it’s one tree. You know what? We won’t know until it eventually comes down, which I hope is not in my lifetime. Um, but I love this tree and um it it shades my whole thing and every year it’s just steals a little bit more of my garden and I’m like, “Oh, we’ve got to get it trimmed back.” And I’m always every time I you know, you get them to come out and trim, which you know what, trimming up trees costs an arm and a leg. Um, but every time we get out there, I’m like, trim it back so that my garden has full sun again. Okay, I’m gonna mince up some red onions to put in here. We’ll just add a little bit of, you know, a little bit of spice to it. You want to use a red onion for this because it’s a very mellow onion that is better eaten raw. Here we go. So, I’ve got them minced up. I got my red onion in here. Going to grab my handful of basil I picked from my garden. I will say my basil I planted 10 plants. Jackie destroyed two of them. They never came back. I was hopeful, but he like destroyed them. Um and then one of them, only one of my purple basil plants out of four survived, but they’re not. Some years I have them and they just grow amazing. This year they are just not very bountiful. I feel like I’ve been having to buy a lot of basil and normally I have basil for days. So, we’re going to just mince this up again. It’s probably because they’re not getting the best sun. Here we go. We’re going to add this in here to our tomatoes. And then we’re going to go in with our feta cheese. You could also do mozzarella. Actually, no, I don’t need that knife anymore. You could do mozzarella cheese as well in this. Kind of both goes well, but Eevee loves feta cheese. Ever since she was a baby, she has loved feta cheese. And I think it was because every summer I like lived at our neighborhood pool and they always had this Greek salad that I got every day for lunch there. And she would just eat, she would never eat anything else, but she would eat my salad because it was my salad. Do you can at all? I do not can. Um, you know, it’s always something I’ve been interested in trying and doing, but I don’t grow enough food to be able to can because we’re a pretty large family and, you know, we live in, you know, the suburbs. We don’t have a huge plot of land, so our garden isn’t massive. Although, I’ve always I’ve always thought about it. I have friends who can, and I always think it’d be fun. So, we’ve got I put a lot of feta on here because Eevee just loves feta. And this is not a salad where you have a huge bowl full of it. This is just going to be a nice, you know, get like a third cup as a side on it. And then I’m going to sprinkle a teeny bit of garlic salt over little bit just to season up those tomatoes. A little drizzle of olive oil. Okay. And then I have some white balsamic reduction. Um, which will have like it won’t be as tart as a vinegar. It’s a little bit sweeter, but it still has that tanginess, but it’s delicious. There we go. So, I’m going to mix it up so it all gets that kind of flavor in there. There we go. And then I’m just going to do one more drizzle over the top because it’s so good. Okay, let’s get our fruit going because then I think everything will be done in just a little bit. So, let me reach over at the other end of my island. We’re going to have kiwis and strawberries. I will say I always try to serve fresh fruit every day at my like lunch. I make my kids two meals a day. Then they have to thin for themselves for and it’s typically breakfast. My little ones of course I make their breakfast. And if my older ones get up in time, they can get breakfast with them. But if they choose to sleep in late, no breakfast for them. But um I always make sure I serve them fruit with lunch and dinner so they get they get their fruit in because kids I don’t think you know except when we put limits on it like the only snack you can have right now is fruit then they’ll eat it but uh they’ll always go for the baked good or the pantry snacks. And I know it’s like different to serve fruit with dinner. It wasn’t very common growing up but I just feel like it just a good way in there. And since I’m not a like short order cook, my kids have to eat what I make. I don’t make them a separate meal. Having fruit on there always ensures that they don’t go hungry. You got a comment. They love your dishes. Where are they from? So, these dishes are from Target. I absolutely love them. This one, I think these collection are Hearth and Hand, you know, Joanna Gaines’s collection. And then my green plates that everybody always asks for are Threshold um are Studio McGee Threshold, but they don’t make them anymore. And the funny thing is when I bought them, I only had three kids, so I just bought a set of eight. I wasn’t crazy like my mom who has seven kids herself and buys like 20 of every set. Um I just bought eight. I was like, “We’re fine. We don’t need 12 now that we’re a family of seven.” And then my parents come and eat dinner with us all the time. I realize I do not have enough dishes now, but I don’t want to get new dishes. So, the little ones get my little plates of my dish set, but eventually I’m like, “Wow, what am I going to do?” And I have been scouring eBay um trying to find one that looks similar on Amazon, but I’m hesitant to buy it. But it’s one of those things, you know, I called my mom always crazy for buying so many dishes and now I wish I had, you know, I just didn’t think that I was we’re going to have five, but I’m glad we do. They’re a little crazy at times. Here we go. So, we’re going to add in our kiwis. I’ll slice them up. This looks like a good kiwi. I feel like most of the time when you get your kiwis from the store, they’re like rock hard. So, you really got to let them, you know, soften up before you cut them in because a rock when they’re hard, they’re firm, they’re not going to be get good. They’re going to be bitter. So, just kind of wait until you can kind of push on them, squish them a little bit, kind of like how an avocado feels. And that’s when they’re going to be nice and sweet. And once they get to that point, pop them in your fridge to keep them fresh because they’ll go from, you know, a nice little smush to mushy pretty fast. And with kiwis being like a dollar a piece, uh you don’t want to waste it. Get that off. Here we go. Although I found Aldi’s has and and Target both carry kiwis for pretty cheap. You can actually get a container of them which typically has between six and eight kiwis in it for like $3.99. So it’s at half the cost that you would get at your grocery store. Okay, let’s get there. And then we’ve got our fruit. We’ve got that. Let me wash my hands. Take a peek. Oh, good. Our timer is just about to go off. I’m going to stir my meatballs real quick. I have them cooking on really, really low. With marinara sauce, you want to keep it that low simmer low. Otherwise, it’s thicker. It will bubble and pop. Let’s go get ready to get them out because everything is about ready to beep. Beautiful. So, here is our faukatcha. And then I will come back for my manakotti in just a second. This is looking gorgeous. It’s got a nice kind of golden brown on it. And I’m going to get my cutting board out because I will tell you if you have the these are like the gold coated or whatnot cutting boards if you can’t cut in them or you’ll ru ruin them because they kind of have that non-stick uh coating on it. So I always like to bake on parchment paper. I’m going to see if I can slide it under because it’s really easy to kind of pull it out. Here we go. And it prevents it from over cooking. No. Come with me. There we go. There we go. And that way when I can cut it for the kids, they can kind of make it like a bread stick. So, we have that. This is our pepperoni side that we seasoned up with um mozzarella, parmesan cheese, garlic salt, Italian spices, and mini pepperonis. And this is our garlic bread size, which again has a little bit more mozzarella and parmesan cheese, garlic, salt, and Italian spices. I’m going to go grab the manakotti out. There we go. And we have got a great bubble going up on the sides. You can see it is bubbling beautifully. And now we are ready to serve up. So, let me grab my plate. Got a bread knife. Let’s get this show on the road. Grab our two plates out. Okay, let’s serve up. Let me grab my shovel. This is the most useful serving utensil ever. Um, you know, it’s literally a shovel, but I find that it works well. Going to slide all of this stuff over here so that I’m all in one spot when I’m serving up. Now, this guy, this is going to be hot because it’s cast iron, which keeps its heat well, but it’s great for when you’re making food to serve it. Um, because it will come off nice. So, I’m going to pick it up. I might have to do Let’s see. We’ve got Let me grab a second spatula. We’re going to be doing some surgery here. So, here we’ve got two manakotti. You can see that nice gooey cheese, you know, coming out of it. I’m going to add a little bit more on top. And then I’m going to serve it up with my Italian meatballs. That way you can have just a nice little meatball side with it. And then we have right here, I’m going to cut our faukacia. You can see how beautiful it is. Pour a little bit. But look, nice soft fluffy faukatcha. our tomato and feta salad uh with fresh basil in it. And then of course, let me grab the last little spoonful of our fresh fruit for a really simple but delicious dinner. Fruit for a really simple but delicious dinner tonight. And again, the manakotti is stuffed with three cheeses. You’ve got mozzarella, parmesan, and ricotta cheese. and we seasoned it with pesto and Italian spices and garlic sauce. So, it has a lot of flavor and then we cooked it in the marinara sauce and so it’s just kind of rich and bold and absolutely delicious. Well, guys, thank you so much for joining us here today. Don’t forget to like and subscribe. I try to do live cooking shows every single day to show you what we’re making for our family and hopefully teach you guys something along the way. Again, we do upload all of our videos to the link on our page. So, if you ever want to recreate any of these recipes at home, all you have to do is go to that link, search for what we cooked for, manakotti, and you can watch along and cook along with me. Again, we also have a link to our Amazon storefront that has all of our cooking gear in it. I have my pots, my pans, my knives, everything that I use in the kitchen, I have in my storefront for you guys to check out if you’re interested. Well, guys, thanks again for joining us here. Don’t forget to like and subscribe.