I'm working towards cooking at home more and more. I love nothing more than to crack open a can of soup and have a big salad, but I enjoy finding a great recipe online and seeing if I can make it work.
Last year I tried my hand at making stuffed shells and I had somewhat success. The sauce was a bit watery and I made enough cheese mixture to make about 8 servings of the shells, but it was edible. So when I asked The Scientist what he was interested in eating this week I was a bit hesitant when he yelled "Stuffed Shells!" before I even finished the sentence. But if there is one thing I love, it is a challenge. Bring on the cheese and pasta!
So I did a little tweaking to the recipe I found and voila! A TRUE SUCCESS!
The most important piece to stuffed shells is the cheese. My mixture includes about a 1 1/2 lbs of ricotta cheese, 1 lb of mozzarella, and a nice mixture of asiago and parmigiano-reggiano. This time around I decided to mix it up a little and add some freshly chopped chives from my little herb garden.
My next step was to get the shells ready. The recipe I used last time called for just 8 shells. That left about 2 lbs of the cheese mixture left over. This time I stuck that whole box in and figured whatever was left over would be a great lunch for the rest of the week. Hopefully I wouldn't be eating crappy stuffed shells for the whole week.
The last step to my dish was to get some super yummy sauce. Tomatoes and garlic. There isn't really a better combination in the world. Check out that knife in the background. You better like these shells or else! ;)
Stuffed the shells, covered them in sauce and more cheese and I got to bakin'. I also added a little garlic bread slices to the mix just to make sure we squeezed every ounce of fat into the mix tonight.
10 minutes later...Dinner is served!
After one bite we realized that I had hit the mark this time. BULLSEYE! We stuffed ourselves silly with shells and I still had the 2nd pan leftover. Sigh...I'm already looking forward to lunch.
