Manicotti/stuffed shells recipe

I made my grandma's spagetti meat sauce and had maybe 2 cups left over. I bought manicotti and it turned out so amazing! It was insanely easy to do too. I had to share it!

 

• Set the oven to 350.
• I boiled the manicotti for a few minutes, just softened them up a bit.
• In a bowl I mixed (with an electric mixer on low) the following: fresh basil and parsley (about 1/4c each, chopped), 1/2c mozzarella cheese, 2 TBL parmesan cheese, 2 TBL softened cream cheese, 1 egg, 1 small container of ricotta cheese and S&P to taste. I put the blended ingredients into a ziplock bag, snipped a corner and began piping the filling into the manicotti.
• I topped the stuffed manicotti with whatever sauce I had left over (about 2c), 1 c of mozzarella cheese and about 3 TBL of parmesan cheese.
• I cooked it for about 30-40 minutes.

Most manicotti recipes call for meat in the filling but my sauce was already so meaty with ground beef and Italian sausage...this dish reminded my tastebuds of lasagne. You take a bite and it's layered: meat sauce, noodle, filling and noodle.
Other recipes also state that sauce should be on the bottom of the pan when you place your filled noodles in it and then topped with more sauce. I didn't have sauce on the bottom, just a little noodle water. My plan was to further cook the stuffed noodles by steaming them with the meat sauce on top. It worked - not sure how nothing was burned but it was awesome!!