or Stuffed Pasta Shells

The blurb on this in the book calls it “an Italian comfort food classic!”  I couldn’t agree More.

This is the first dish I am making- and I am not making it for ten people, so I did pair down this recipe substantially.  Good for my math skills.  Especially since it calls for two pounds of shells, but the box is sold as 12 oz.  Might I say, “mama mia!”

That being said…

I did as recommended and made a full size batch of the classic tomato sauce since it has such a long simmer.  I assumed I would be using it in the future.

Pretty standard- canned crushed tomatoes, olive oil, garlic, salt, Italian spices.  Nothing fancy.  I did a four hour simmer.

This is good stuff.  Doesn’t taste super fresh like a summer tomato sauce- but very rich and comforting.  Yum.

Shells are boiled for a short time and set to dry out on a towel.

Meanwhile…

Make your fatty filling.  Ricotta, Mozzarella, Parmesan, parsley and egg- mix this together and fill those shells.  This is where it got a little wonky for me.

She fits all of her shells (two lbs) in a 9×13 pan.  I needed to divide mine up in much smaller portions- but then when I put the sauce on top, I didn’t think that there was enough in each one to finish cooking the shells- so I doubled the sauce.  They ended up looking something like this…

Four loaf pans and a small ramekin!  Foster Family will be eating this for a while I suspect.

These bake for a while (30 min) or until bubbly.

They turned out GREAT.  Very comforting.  Of course Mason wouldn’t touch them due to the parsley invasion and the specks in the sauce- but Mark and I liked them very much.

I paired them with the broiled asparagus in menu three- also delicious.

In retrospect, I probably should have put more shells in each pan- stacked them instead of a single layer.  I think then I wouldn’t have had to double the sauce.  But it was still tasty.

We had a left over pan a couple of days later and I left it wrapped in foil for the bulk of the baking- and that seemed to help cook the shells too.

So far so good!

From Menu 48, Whatever Happened to Sunday Dinner