Manicotti eggplant bake gone wild

Recipe Rating:	1 Rating5
Categories:	Beef, Italian, Mexican, Other Main Dishes, Other Sauces, Quick & Easy, Pork
Serves:	2 with some left over for me for lunch the next day :-)
Prep Time:	30 Min
Cook Time:	30 Min

Ingredients

	4 ounces “ about 7” manicotti pasta
	½ medium to large eggplant
	3 chorizo sausages “ casings removed” i used johnsonville
	½ recipe “holy mole’ meat pie filling “ recipe posted on jap
	olive oil for frying eggplant
	parmesan cheese or what ever cheese you have or like
	sauce:
	1 – 27 ounce can of el pato mexican style tomato sauce “ this is hot” so if you don’t like the heat use rotel’ tomato’s. or just plain tomato sauce.
	5 cloves roasted garlic smashed “ can you really have to much garlic???”
	3 tablespoons light brown sugar “ or to taste”

Pinched by roxfletcher, and 40 more.

Irisa Raina 9

Well Seasoned

New Iberia, LA (pop. 30,617)

Leiski

Member Since Mar 2012

Irisa's Notes:

The recipe for the mole' meat sauce is posted on here " holy mole' meat pie " and I just love using Reynolds non stick foil!!! Great for "not cleaning up"..lol
NOTE:
You can get the Mexican tomato sauce at some markets, and of course if you have a Mexican store near you “ we do & makes life so much easier “ you can get it there, and of course you can get it on line at MexGrocer.com

And if you are using the Rotel’ tomatoes or plain tomato sauce remember to season it, with salt, pepper etc.

Directions

Wash and cut eggplant into small bite size pieces, and soak in salted water for about 15 minutes. Some say you don’t need to soak eggplant but I like to because it removes some of the bitter taste.

Boil pasta for about 3 minutes in salted water. Remove carefully and rinse to cool. This will continue cooking in the oven.

Remove casings from chorizo and fry “ loosely “ remove from pan but do not discard grease.

After that time rinse the eggplant very well, then add the smashed garlic, and eggplant and fry in the chorizo oil “ adding olive oil “ if necessary

Once the eggplant is soft remove, discard any grease and wipe with paper towel to get as much of the grease out as you can.
Try not to remove any of the burnt on pieces of the chorizo because that is where the flavor is.

Put the eggplant, mole’ sauce, chorizo in the same pan and cook till the mixture is thick. Cool completely.

TO MAKE THE SAUCE:

Cook all the ingredients till it has reduced and is thick.

Carefully fill the manicotti noodles. If you have any mole’ meat sauce left over, top the noodles before you put on the sauce, and cheese.

To arrange the dish, put some of the tomato sauce on the bottom of the baking dish, add the filled pasta, top with mole’ meat filling and put some more tomato sauce on top of the noodles.