cooking grains: pasta

For dinner I decided to make manicotti pasta, stuffed with different kinds of cheese, and tomato sauce. These pasta's are about 4 inches long and 1 inch wide. They were hard before they were cooked, like regular pasta, and have a ridged surface. I made the stuffing using provolone, cream cheese, feta cheese, parsley, garlic, and pepper. It was pretty annoying to stuff this mixture into the pasta so I made my dad help me. When all of the pastas were stuffed I put them in a pan and covered them with tomato sauce. They have to be completely covered or the pasta won't cook all of the way. That has happened to me before and it is not good. I cooked the pasta in the oven instead of in boiling water. Since they are covered in the sauce they cook in the oven. That is why they have to be completely covered. After a half hour I took them out and fed one to my dad but they were not all the way done so I had to put them back in for 10 more minutes. When I took them out a second time they were done. The pasta was a lot softer now that it was cooked. When I looked, it had also puffed up a little bit. I have never noticed that before.
This is what it looked like when it was done:
















This is the lemon pound cake that I made because I wanted to use my new bunt pan. I just thought it looked cool.