Easy Manicotti and A Great Bordeaux

Alright, the title is kind of false advertising, because I didn't actually drink the Bordeaux with the manicotti. I made flat iron steak on Saturday night and we opened a 2001 Bordeaux that had actually been allowed to age in our pantry for years. Oh my. What a lovely, delicate balance -- smooth on the palate with a subtle, sophisticated flavor. I still need training to recognize exactly what I'm tasting. If someone says "currants and black pepper" I'll be able to distinguish those flavors but can't think of what I'm tasting on my own. Yet. I am enjoying the wine-tasting experience, and I intend to learn as much as I can without ending up in rehab in the process.

Flat iron steak is really good if it's marinated. I've tried it both marinated and not, and it definitely benefits from soaking in wine or some other type of marinade. This time I mixed red wine, olive oil, garlic (of course!), fresh rosemary, and a little dry mustard, and let the steak marinate for about an hour. Then I grilled it for about 5-7 minutes each side, and it was delicious! I served it with a red wine mushroom sauce that sort of came about accidentally. I was cooking the mushrooms as I usually do, with salt, pepper, garlic, and a little white wine, when I remembered that I wanted to make a red wine sauce for the steak but it was a little late. So I dumped some red wine into the mushrooms, added a little arrowroot to thicken it and then finished by stirring a pat of butter into it. It was quite passable and received good reviews from the family.

Now on to the manicotti: last week I was bored with the usual dinners and when I saw a package of manicotti tubes at Albertson's, I bought them and tried to decide what to fill them with. I didn't want anything super-heavy on the stomach, so decided against Italian sausage or ground beef. Spinach and ricotta alone would not fly with the kids, so I thought about the package of frozen ground turkey that I'd been saving for Sloppy Joes. I browned the turkey with chopped garlic and onion, seasoned the mixture with salt, pepper and Italian seasoning, added some ricotta cheese that I had left over from the last batch of lasagna and a little of the shredded six-cheese Italian blend that Albertson's sells, and stuffed the manicotti with that mixture. I WAS going to make homemade Alfredo sauce to put on top, but I was in a hurry (as usual), so just dumped spaghetti sauce on it, sprinkled more cheese on top, and shoved it in the oven for 30 minutes. It was really delicious! I was pleasantly surprised. I got a thumbs up from one kid and thumbs down from the other, which means I'll make it again and tweak it a bit to see if I can get the almost impossible thumbs up from both of them. I'm an incurable optimist.