The Joys of Cooking: Stuffed Shells

Last summer we did a blind wine tasting with two of our friends, using two bottles of wine, priced at $20 and $40.  We had asked the guy at the Eataly wine shop to pick out the absolute best wine within each category, bag them up, and staple the receipt closed so that we couldn’t see which was which until we wanted to.  We all picked the $20 as our favorite.  Good thing for our wallets.

This past Christmas season we decided that we wouldn’t give gifts between the four of us, but would, instead, go back to Eataly, pick out ingredients for a meal we would make together and then this time we’d do the same blind tasting, but at $25 and $50.  Again, we confirmed that we are all class-less cheap dates.

But we digress.  The point of this was to say that despite our no-gift pact, upon arrival, our said (bad) friends pulled out a nicely wrapped present!  They had bought us The Joy of Cooking — a staple we had been without — and it is from there that the recipe below comes.

 

Stuffed Shells

From The Joy of Cooking

sauce:

28 oz whole peeled tomatoes

5 cloves garlic halved

1 tsp sugar

½ tsp salt

¼ tsp red chili flakes

¼ tsp black pepper

6 sprigs basil

6 sprigs parsley

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Combine the tomatoes, garlic, sugar, salt, chili flakes, pepper, basil and parsley in a heavy bottomed pot and simmer for 15-20 minutes.  Then use an immersion blender to blend.

 

Stuffings:

meat and spinach

½ cup ground beef

1/4 cup pureed spinach

1/4 cup bread crumbs

1 clove garlic

½ cup parmesan

2 eggs

salt and pepper to taste

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Put 1 tbsp of water in a pot, add in a hefty handful of spinach, cover for about 3 minutes to let the spinach wilt. Puree the wilted spinach and let cool.  Cook up the beef quickly and then brown the bread crumbs.  Press the garlic and grate the parm.  Mix the two eggs in a bowl and then add all of the other ingredients.

 

meat and parm

½ cup ground beef

½ cup parmesan

1 clove garlic

salt and pepper to taste

 

Combine the above ingredients.

 

cheese

15 oz. ricotta

2 eggs

¼ tsp salt

¼ tsp black pepper

½ cup parm

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Combine the cheese, salt, and pepper.  Then add the eggs one at a time and mix.

 

cheese and spinach

¼ cup cheese mixture from above

¼ spinach

salt and pepper to taste

 

Cook 1 lb of shells until they are a few minutes shy of al dente.  Drain and stuff with whatever stuffings you choose from above.  If you pick two different stuffings then you will use the whole pound of shells.  Place the shells in a pyrex and cover with sauce and parmesan.  Bake at 350° for 40 minutes and then let stand for 15 minutes before serving.

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We have made this just the two of us since our blind-wine-tasting-double-date — but it hasn’t been the same. Maybe it is the sheer quantity of product, or the many steps to follow, or maybe just the fun memories, but this dinner will always seem, to us, like it was fit for four.