Six-Cheese Turkey Manicotti Recipe

Here's another amazing recipe from my friend Heather. I had this stuffed manicotti at her house shortly after I met her, almost four years ago now, and I can still remember how melt-in-your-mouth delicious these were. I asked her for the recipe that night, she hand wrote it down for me and then I promptly lost it. So after getting to know her a little better, I decided it would be ok to ask for it a-gain and of course she happily gave it to me a-gain because she's awesome like that. So I finally recreated these last night to post and save this as one of my favorite recipes. I did use turkey instead of beef (which her original recipe calls for) so choose whichever you prefer. Turkey's just a bit healthier and I figured with all that cheese...

Ingredients
2 boxes manicotti noodles
2 cans spaghetti sauce
1 lb turkey (or ground beef)
2 (8oz) pkgs shredded mozzarella
2lb ricotta cheese
24oz cottage cheese
3 (5oz) containers asiago, parmesan and romano cheese blend
1 tsp minced garlic
1 tsp dried basil

Directions

1. Prepare manicotti in large stock pot according package. I like al dente.

2. Brown turkey (or beef) in a skillet. Drain if using beef.

3. In a very large bowl, mix together all packages of cheese except one of the mozzarella packages.

4. Fold in cooked turkey (or beef) and garlic to cheese mixture.

5. Put thin layer of spaghetti sauce on bottom of two 9 x 13" baking dishes.

6. Gently stuff manicotti with turkey and cheese mixture using a spoon. Place stuffed manicotti in the baking dish. If a manicotti noodle rips, don't worry, place the noodle rip-side down in the baking dish.

7. Pour spaghetti sauce over the manicotti, then put mozzarella over top.

8. Bake at 350˚ for 30mins. Sprinkle with basil right before serving.