Stuffed Shells Tim and Victor's Totally Joyous Recipes

 

I was walking through the grocery store today, and while looking for my favorite mini rigatoni, I saw a box of shells. Large shells. The kind of shells you stuff with cheese. Never one to fight an impulse-buy, I grabbed one and started planning a meal…

Stuffed Shells isn’t my normal August-Go-To-Meal, but it wasn’t sweltering, today, and Nonna does like her pasta. And even though Victor and I both like our pasta, too, it’s much easier to blame things on the little old lady living in the house, ya know?!?

So through the store I went, finishing my shopping. The only thing I needed was the cheese for the filling – I had everything else at home. I grabbed ricotta, farmers cheese, and fresh mozzarella.

This was definitely a wing-it recipe. I took pieces-parts of things already in the house for the sauce, blended a couple of cheeses for the filling, and popped it in the oven.

First was cooking the shells…

Stuffed Shells Tim and Victor's Totally Joyous Recipes

 

I cooked the whole pound not really knowing how many I was going to need. I ended up with about 8 extra.

And then I started the sauce.

Homemade Tomato Sauce Tim and Victor's Totally Joyous Recipes

 

I pureed about 5 tomatoes from the garden and added about a cup of oven-roasted plum tomatoes in olive oil.

In a skillet, I browned off 6 spicy Italian sausages, added a container of sauce from the freezer, and the fresh and oven-roasted tomatoes, above.

Homemade Tomato Sauce Tim and Victor's Totally Joyous Recipes

 

I also had about a quarter-head of cauliflower that had seen better days, so it got chopped up and added to the pot. Waste not, want not.

Next came the filling.

4 Cheese Filling for Stuffed Shells Tim and Victor's Totally Joyous Recipes

 

The filling was simplicity, itself. A container of ricotta, 8 ounces of farmers cheese, 8 ounces of fresh mozzarella, and about 2 ounces of granna padano. I put it all into the food processor with a handful of parsley, a pinch of garlic powder, salt, and pepper. I didn’t add any binder – no eggs or any of that stuff. I figured the cheeses would stand up on their own. And they did.

I filled the shells using a pastry bag because it’s a lot easier than trying to do it with a spoon. Go out and buy a couple of pastry bags. They’re cheap. And they come in handy.

Homemade Stuffed Shells Tim and Victor's Totally Joyous Recipes

 

I added some sausage to the pans, added more sauce, covered one and baked it at 350° for about an hour. The other was frozen and then vacuum-packed for later.

We had lots of thick-sliced Italian bread and butter to sop up the sauce.

Nonna cleaned her plate. So did we.