FANTASTIC Pasta Idea

[lessame]

Gotta tell you all about something I tried last night. I got some recipe cards that recommended making "noodles" or manicotti shells out of egg crepes. Sounded good, so I gave it a shot, and it was AWESOME!

Here's the recipe:

For the "Shells"
8 eggs
2 T milk (I used skim evaporated milk)
1t salt
1/2 t black pepper

Beat all together very well. Heat a 12" nonstick frying pan, spray with olive oil flavored spray. When hot, spoon about 3 BIG spoonfulls of the eggs in -- just BARELY enough to coat the bottom of the pan. Let it cook until there's not wet spots, loosen the edges and slide out onto a plate. Make sure the pan's not so hot that it browns -- I ruined my first one. Repeat -- I got 6 crepes out of this.

For the filling:
15 oz container ricotta (lf, of course)
4 eggs, beaten
1 1/2 cups shredded Mozzarella
3/4 cup shredded Parmesan
2 t dried parsley flakes

Mix together well.

In a 9 x 13 baking pan, put 2/3 cup spaghetti sauce (I used Paul Newman's Sockarooni sauce). Put about 1/4 cup filling in each crepe and roll up, placing each on top of the sauce in the pan. Top with rest of sauce. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes. Remove from the oven, top with another 1 cup cheese (I mixed Mozzarella and Parmesan) and return to oven for another 20 minutes.

That's it! Took about 20 minutes to put together, 40 to bake, and it was GREAT! My DD and I actually preferred the egg crepe to pasta -- good texture and not so heavy.

You can also make the crepes, roll them up and slice them, and use like noodles. That's my next experiment!

Hope you like this.

Sue

[Carboholic]

I first heard of these while watching Suzanne Sommers on tv talking about her diet plan. She demonstrated this recipe. Same as above but no added milk. When you have 6 or seven crepes made stack a few together and roll up then slice 1/4" - 1/2" thick to make "pasta". I use them in a chicken alfredo, you can even use NSA spaghetti sauce. You'd swear you were eating pasta.

[Carboholic]

I first heard of these while watching Suzanne Sommers on tv talking about her diet plan. She demonstrated this recipe. Same as above but no added milk. When you have 6 or seven crepes made stack a few together and roll up then slice 1/4" - 1/2" thick to make "pasta". I use them in a chicken alfredo, you can even use NSA spaghetti sauce or whatever. You'd swear you were eating pasta.

[vespachica]

That's a lot of eggs. DH has high cholesterol and mine can be borderline if I eat too much "bad" stuff. I'm sure you could use Egg Beaters in the ricotta mix but what do you think about substituting for the crepes? (Or maybe substitute half egg beaters, half real eggs?)

The recipe sounds really good, though! Does it taste "egg-y"?

[lessame]

vespachica -- don't see why you couldn't use eggbeaters -- texture might be a little different, but keep them thin and you should be OK. NO, they don't taste egg-y! I think it's the salt and pepper, and maybe the olive oil that keep them from tasting like an omelette, but you'd swear it really was really thin pasta!

Sue

[ami]

Pasta with Three-Herb Pesto
Provided by: Cooking Light magazine
"A mixture of different pasta shapes adds visual interest and texture to this meatless main dish." Original recipe yield: 6 servings.

INGREDIENTS:
3 cups fresh basil leaves
1/2 cup fresh parsley sprigs
1/4 cup fresh oregano leaves
2 tablespoons pine nuts, toasted
1 tablespoon freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons olive oil
8 cups mixed hot whole-wheat cooked pasta (such as farfalle, penne, and shells)

DIRECTIONS:
Place first 7 ingredients in a food processor; process until smooth. With processor on, slowly pour oil through food chute; process until well-blended. Toss with pasta.

[nicolio]

thank-you for the wonderful idea! i was trying to figure out how to make a lasagna and be "safe" and your solution worked great!

[Way2Huge]

just bumping this up so I can find it faster tonight.

[luvs_torun]

Wonder if it would work if you just used egg whites to make the crepes?
This recipe sounds wonderful. I also think that ground turkey breast added to the filler would be good!!

[sassypea]

I can vouch to how great these egg crepes are - I used to make these when I was doing the Susanne Somers diet (Somersize) and they are truly wonderful. I will admit that it took a while to get the technique just right - not too thick, not too thin - but once you get it right, they are a snap to make. I used these egg crepes in a wonderful enchilada recipe and you really didnt know the difference. They are very versatile and I will have to start making them myself again!! Thanks for the reminder.

[luvs_torun]

Ok... I made this, this afternoon. Or a version of it. I did make the "shells" with egg whites only (no yokes) and they turned out nice!
I also cooked a pound of turkey burger, an onion (diced) and 3 cloves of garlic together. For the "filling" instead of ricotta I used the same amount of LF cream cheese.
I then layered everything.... Ragu Light, turkey burger mix, layer of cheese mixture, layer of egg crepes and so on...... I also added a layer of turkey pepporoni, then topped with LF cheddar cheese. This made a delicious lasagna!!
Thanks so much for the crepe idea!!!!!

[littlebeansmommy]

while I realize that eggs for breakfast is nothing new, I used this morning's breakfast as an opportunity to try out the crepes, figuring that my daughter and I could just eat my mistakes for breakfast, and found out that the crepes make a killer wrap for a breakfast burrito! You have to make them a little bit thicker than you would for "noodles," but you don't mind the eggy taste of the thicker crepe, because it's breakfast (actually, it still wasn't that eggy tasting!) I filled mine with some leftover peppers and mushrooms, cheese and a half a leftover chicken breast that I shredded and tossed with a little chili powder. I broiled it open faced a few minutes until the cheese melted and then I rolled it up. Yum!

[Way2Huge]

I made the original recipe posted by lessame.
Out of this world My family had been missing pasta and this is an excellent alternative. Making the crepes was fun, too.
Thanks for a great recipe!

[Pa'dow!]

I wanted to bump this up so people didn't miss it. I made this the other night, but varied it a tad to make a smaller portion as I wasn't sure my DH would be convinced of the egg crepes instead of noodles. Now that I've tried it, I think if I could get it made without him seeing, he might never know!

For the crepes I reduced it to just two eggs and a splash of skim milk (probably about 1T) and then just salt and pepper (not measured). It worked better for me to spray my pan (which I used my small fry pan to make small crepes) with Olive Oil Pan each time, not a lot, but you definitely want the crepes loose and don't want to have to scrape them at all or they'll bunch up. Also, the thinner you try to keep them the better. They will set up a little faster without getting brown on the bottom. I got four nice small crepes out of this.

I know manicotti typically doesn't have meat, but I browned ground turkey with some onions. I layered the bottom of my pan (not a 9x13 but the four small crepes fit across it nicely ... maybe a 7x10 or something) with Classico Sauce, then added the ground turkey and kind of mixed it together since I didn't cook them together at all. I took each of my crepes and lined them across the middle with baby spinach leaves (I buy this for salad), then the ricotta mixture (I used 1 cup part-skim ricotta, 1 cup part-skim mozzarella, some grated parmesan and some left-over sauteed veggies (green, red and yellow peppers, onions, mushrooms). Fold the crepes and lay them on the sauce. More sauce over the top (I think it's important to cover the entire crepe so the egg doesn't get crispy like it would if it was exposed - this I think makes it even more like a noodle by soaking in the sauce), baked for 20 minutes, then put about 1/2 cup part-skim mozzarella over the top and baked 20 more minutes. It was to die for! I had two for dinner and two for lunch the next day. I will definitely make this again!

Oh and I want to give lessame the credit! Thanks for posting!

[casper63]

I have a stupid question....about cutting the crepes for noodles...why do you have to roll up the crepes and then slice them? Couldn't you just slice them?