Crockpot Manicotti

100 degree weather has come back making the oven a horrible 4-letter word. Because we've having such a warm summer, I've been doing a lot of crockpot cooking and turning on the crockpot outside on our backyard porch to keep from using the oven. I feel like the woman who started the blog A Year of Crockpotting, which has provided some ideas for past and future dishes.

Typically I cook traditional crockpot menus like stews, chilli and roasts but today I tried manicotti. I prepared it following the box, with a few healthier substitutions.

1. Cooked the manicotti noodles for 7 min in boiling water.
2. Steamed a bag of spinach.
3. In a bowl, mixed 2 eggs, 1/3 cup basil and pinch of pepper and parsley.
4. Add 16 oz fat free cottage cheese, spinach, diced uncooked mushrooms, and 1/2 cup skim shredded mozeralla and cheddar blend.
4. In bottom of crockpot mixed together 8 oz can of diced tomatoes and small can of tomato paste, along with seasonings - basil, oregano, dried garlic, dried onion flakes, crushed red pepper, pepper and salt.
5. Stuffed shells with cheese mix and placed into crockpot.
6. Repeated step #4 on top of stuffed shells.

Cook on low about 3 hours.

This tasted cooked through and was hot. More juice at the bottom then I expected but the stuffed shells were tender and not dry so I think the recipe translated well to the crockpot.