VeganMoFo Day 5 - Kelly's Manicotti

Finally, a McDougall recipe from his The McDougall Program for A Healthy Heart. 

My husband's gut is over-reacting to all the veggies he's been eating lately and he asked for a nice, safe pasta meal, so I moved this one up in the queue.

Here's the three recipes associated with this meal:

Kelly's Manicotti
servings - 8
prep time - 25 minutes
cooking time - 1 hour

1 box of 12 manicotti shells
2 cups Creamy Mashed Potatoes (page 361)
1 jar no-oil added pasta sauce
1 tablespoon Italian herb seasoning


Pre-heat the oven to 350ºF.

Spread some of the sauce onto the bottom of a 12 x 9 inch baking dish.

Mix the potatoes, 1/4 cup of the pasta sauce, and the Italian seasoning together. Stuff the potato mixture into the manicotti shells and place side by side in the baking dish.

Pour the remaining sauce over the shells.

Cover with parchment paper and a sheet of foil. Bake for 60 minutes.

Variation: Stir 1 cup of finely chopped spinach into the potato mixture before stuffing the manicotti.


John McDougal, MD and Mary McDougall
The McDougall Program for A Healthy Heart
page 331

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Creamy Mashed Potatoes
Servings - 6 - 8
Prep time - 20 minutes
Cooking time - 45 minutes

10 medium potatoes, peeled
salt (optional)
black pepper (optional)

Cut the potatoes in half and cover them with water in a large pot.

Cover and cook under low heat until the potatoes are very tender, about 45 minutes.

Drain the potatoes, reserving the cooking water.

Beat the potatoes with an electric mixer, ading small amounts of the cooking water while beating to get the consistency you want. Beat until smooth and creamy.

Season with a small amount of salt and pepper, if desired.

Hint: To make the potatoes even creamier, replace some or all of the reserved water with a non-dairy milk. Add to the potatoes while mashing.

To make garlic mashed potatoes, add several cloves of roasted garlic (page 306) while mashing.


John McDougall, MD and Mary McDougall, RN
The McDougall Program for A Healthy Heart
page 361

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Caramelized Roasted Garlic

5 heads garlic
3/4 cup vegetable broth
2 teaspoons lower sodium soy sauce

Pre-heat the oven to 300ºF.

Peel some of the loose, papery skin off the garlic heads, leaving the whole head intact. Slice a thin strip off the top of each head so that most of the cloves are exposed.

Place the heads, sliced side up, in a baking dish. Drizzle 1/2 cup of the broth over the heads, making sure each one is coated with the broth.

Using a pastry brush, baste each head with half of the soy sauce.

Cover and bake for about 2 1/2 hours, or until the cloves are very soft. Test by piercing with a fork. Uncover and check several times during the baking process to make sure there is still some broth at the bottom of the baking dish. Drizzle the remaining 1/4 cup of the broth over the garlic heads. Brush the garlic with the remaining soy sauce about half-way through the baking time. When the baking is complete, there shou at the bottom of the baking dish, only a brown film. this is the process that caramelizes the garlic, givng it an absolutely wonderful, mild flavor.

Squeeze the garlic cloves out of the head and spread it on crackers or bread, or just eat them plain.

Hint: The roasted garlic makes a wonderful addition to mashed potatoes, soups and stews, salad dressings, and many main dishes. Spread it also on pancakes or french toast.

John McDougall, MD and Mary McDougall, RN
The McDougall Program for A Healthy Heart
page 306

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First off, I've never seen manicotti shells in a whole grain version, so these are made with plain old Ronzoni shells.

And of course, I used my trusty old Wear-Ever cookie gun that I inherited from my mom to squirt those taters into the shells:

Same item, same approximate year, but my box is blue

For the sauce I used Walnut Acres Low Sodium Tomato and Basil, the one one of that brand that's sold around here that doesn't have oil as an ingredient.

For the mashed potatoes I used plain old russets. I made them with the full 10 potatoes called for because I love having extra mashed potatoes for lunch and snacks.

I already had some roasted garlic in the freezer and just defrosted a few and tossed them in. I don't make them the way Mary says here - I just roast them up plain in my terra cotta garlic roaster in the toaster oven.

As I've been trying to do with all my meals lately, I did toss in the optional handful of fresh chopped up baby spinach.

After all the squirting, arranging and pouring of the sauce, I shook a bit of McDougall parmesan on it.

Finished product, cooling so we can eat it

This is one meal that is always a hit, even with my picky son. He's not crazy about the spinach, but has learned to live with it. I cooked up a big bag of cauliflower to go with it and have very little left over for someone's lunch tomorrow, unless my son grabs it for a midnight snack tonight.