Friday, February 20, 2009

Cheese Stuffed Shells

I really love Italian cooking. I do NOT love spending all day watching tomatoes boil, though. I found this recipe one day while fiending for ricotta cheese stuffed shells! It is delicious - even my husband likes these, and he is "not so much" with the pasta. When good friends of ours lost a daughter a year and a half ago, I made these in 2 square foil pans so they could just heat up what they would eat at one meal. (I'm a big believer in lots of food when someone passes away!)

The other day I went to Sam's and bought a monster tub of Ricotta and a FIVE POUND BRICK of mozzarella. Had to use them, right?

Cheese Stuffed Shells

INGREDIENTS
Sauce:
1 chopped onion, small
2 cloves garlic, chopped
olive oil
lg can Italian tomatoes, with juice
15 oz can tomato sauce
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp basil
2 tsp sugar
2 tbsp parsley

Cheese Stuffing:
1 lb ricotta
1/4 lb mozzarella, grated
3 tbsp parmesan, grated
1 tbsp parsley
1 egg

20-30 large pasta shells

DIRECTIONS
Sauce:
Saute onion and garlic in oil until tender. Add tomatoes; saute until soft. Break up with a fork or wooden spoon. Add tomato sauce and spices; simmer 30 minutes to 1 hour.

Cheese stuffing and shell assembly:
Combine ingredients and mix well; put in fridge until shells are ready to stuff. Parboil shells about 12 minutes. Drain and rinse in cold water; drain again. Place half of sauce in 13x9x2 baking dish. Carefully fill each shell with cheese stuffing.



Place shells on top of sauce, stuffed side up. Spoon remaining sauce over shells and sprinkle with more grated parmesan cheese. Cover with foil and bake at 375 for 35-40 minutes. If desired, uncover 10 minutes before baking is done and sprinkle with shredded mozzarella.
Serves 4-5


Becca's tip of the day - I have a decorating tube with an open star tip. I load this with the cheese mixture and it is super-easy to pipe the stuffing into the shells with less mess and aggravation! This is the tool I use. Love it!

4 comments:

threesidesofcrazy said...

I love stuffed shells - especially when someone else makes them. What time is dinner?

Barbara said...

Sounds so delicious! I love shells, well heck, I love pasta anyway it comes...

I should say, neither Becca nor I sell Pampered Chef, we both just have a slight... ahem... addiction to kitchen gadgets ;)

Becca said...

Well, I think we will eat around 6 or so... lol!
Barbara and I have an awesome PC consultant that we both love and adore - she thinks we should sell it but seriously I just do not have time. So what am I doing at 4AM posting to the blog?? Just got finished stamping a bunch of cards! COMPLETELY lost track of time. I guess I have a few addictions, but let's just pretend that was never even brought up, shall we? :)

Kiy said...

Oh yum! for those of us too *coughcheapcough* to pop for PC (don't get me wrong, I love it and thankfully do not have a consultant at the moment, lol) ... I do this by taking a zip top baggie, filling and cutting a corner off to pipe. It works well, but probably not as neat or pretty as the PC piping bag!

I am going to have to try this recipe, it looks scrumptious!

Cheers, Kiy

P.S. Please add three more settings to your table, we can easily make a six o'clock dinner, lol! :)