Day 3 – Spinach & Ricotta Stuffed Shells

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I’m going to be honest here and say that I chose this one partially because it said EASY Stuffed Shells in bolded letters right under the picture. These Spinach and Ricotta Stuffed Shells looked great too! I’ve only ever has frozen stuffed shells so we were up for the challenge. It was not so hard to make, but I would not say super easy as it’s a lot of moving parts. Thankfully I had sous chef Ben along for the (cooking) ride!

Ingredients – Before we went grocery shopping we made a list of everything we needed. Ben checked out the Mozzarella we had in the fridge and noted we had plenty and were fine. Of course when we go to pull out the ingredients the mozzarella cheese had a big old ball of mold in the middle and smelt awful. Neither of us have been here in two weeks, I should have known better. Thankfully we still had some 3 Cheese Italian Blend from a past Pinterest experiment that we swapped in for the Mozzarella.

Overall not too bad, I diced up the onion and found the center was going bad, trusty old ShopRite at it’s best. Pulled out my massive minced garlic jar and went to work. I’ve never cooked anything with spinach before either- just not my favorite thing out there along with kale. Gross. I almost just threw the leaves in there. Thankfully cross-referenced the photos which showed tiny bits of spinach. I shred that baby up for the frying pan.

I put Ben in charge of the shells – which almost didn’t make it out in El Dente time. He lined the pan with sauce and laid the shells. In retrospect, we should have held the shell, stuffed with cheese, re-wrapped and THEN placed in the pan, but we survived.

For reference- we made about 30 shells (1 box) with the same amount of filling that Kelley put in her recipe. We put both pans in the oven for 30 minutes at 375 as instructed and topped with Basil and parm (Ben doesn’t eat ANYTHING without Parmesan cheese). I opted for the fresh stuff – although not as fresh as Kelley suggested with blocks of cheese that you grate yourself, and Ben of course topped with his Costco-sized Kraft Parmesan Cheese.