Manicotti are the slightly larger "siblings" of the cannelloni and are popular in America. The name means "small sleeve" and they are fluted and not smooth like the cannelloni. The filling originally consists of a cheese mix and spinach (but I didn't have one) and the sauce only consists of tomatoes. But I still had some leftover vegetables that had to be processed, and that's how "my version" came about. The Manicotti can be bought ready-made in Italian specialist shops, but you can also make them yourself. What you need in terms of production time, you save later when filling and cooking ........ The finished ones have to be pre-cooked and later filled with piping bags, with those made by yourself you just cut the dough sheets to size and give the filling on it and rolls it up ......... so it balances out.

Put flour on the work surface. Make a well in the middle, add the egg, salt and oil, mix with a little flour from the edge until it can no longer run out. Then knead everything with your hands to form a smooth dough. Always moisten your hands with water and continue kneading with it, as it is initially very dry and crumbly. Moistening can be done 3 - a maximum of 5 times. This way you can regulate the consistency better and the dough does not become too soft. So please do not add water from the start, but really knead it in by moistening your hands. Wrap the dough in foil and let it rest at room temperature until all other work steps are done. (but at least 30 min.)

Grate the Parmesan, mash the soft buffalo mozzarella with a fork. Mix both with the ricotta and stir in the egg yolks. Season to taste with pepper and a little salt, chop the parsley, fold in and refrigerate until ready to use.

Wash tomatoes (if you are too ripe), remove the stalk and cut into small pieces. Peel the shallots and dice them. Skin the garlic, press it. Halve, core and finely chop the peppers. Wash the zucchini and aubergine, cut into very small cubes. Peel the carrots and dice them into small pieces. Chop the broccoli florets without the hard stems.

In a large pan, fry the shallots, garlic and peppers in 4 tablespoons of olive oil until translucent. Roast the tomato paste, add the tomatoes and let it stew for 1 minute. Deglaze with wine and water, add all the vegetables, turn the heat down 1/3, simmer uncovered for 5 minutes. Then stir in the tomatoes, herbs and chilli flakes, season to taste with salt and sugar and then simmer openly for about 10 minutes and allow the liquid to reduce almost completely.

In the meantime, divide the dough into 4 portions and pull each one through in the machine (starting at level 0) 3 - 4 times and fold 1 x after each pull-through. From level 1 - 6 then spread out 1 x each time and then smooth out the long, approx. 10 cm wide strips. Without the machine, roll out the 4 dough portions with the rolling stick 1 - 1.5 mm thin and in elongated, 10 cm wide strips.

Then cut the strips into 10 cm wide rectangles. If you want to make manicotti, you can put each plate lengthways on a small gnocchi board and roll across it with a little pressure with a roller. Then there are racks of 10 x 11 cm. Now fill each smooth side of the rectangle so that the grooves are transverse when rolling up, then each roll has the grooves lengthways. But it is not mandatory, you can also leave the plates flat, then it's just cannelloni. They should then be 10 x 11 cm and you roll them up from a 10 cm wide side.

When filling, apply the cheese mixture on a 10 cm wide side. There should be enough for the rolls to have a diameter of approx. 3 cm. Roll up the panels 3/4, moisten the end with a little water, roll up to the end and lay them down with the seam facing down. When all are done, preheat the oven to 200 ° O / bottom heat. Spread 2/3 of the vegetable sauce in a casserole dish of approx. 20 x 29 cm, place the rolls on top with the seam facing down, spread the rest of the sauce over it and cover the surface thickly with the grated Parmesan. The cooking time is 20 minutes. The Parmesan should form a nice crust.

If you use finished cannelloni blanks, you need at least 12 pieces. Please refer to the package instructions for processing with regard to any pre-cooking. The filling must then be filled in using a piping bag.

The resting time given below is included in the preparation time.