BACK TO THE 80'S WITH BAKED STUFFED SHELLS

Everyone loves  pasta shells with sauce, even though it is kind of 80's, and makes a bit of a mess, what with all the pans, etc. (Though these are nice because you can put them in the freezer and have them available anytime.)  

 

The key is the filling for the shells (see below) - the shells themselves you just buy and cook, as you do any pasta. Use the big ones. (Although you need to be somewhat gentle in taking them out of the water, because otherwise they'll tear.   

   

The tomato sauce is any kind of tomato sauce that you like, but here's one:

Simple tomato sauce:

• 1 large can diced tomatoes (ONLY buy Whole Foods 365 or Hunt's brand.)
• 1 clove garlic
•  3 TB olive oil
•  salt and red pepper flakes
•  pinch of sugar (if it needs it)
• fresh herbs if you have them - particularly basil

Moderately heat olive oil in a large wide saucepan. If you have a food processor, start it up and drop in the garlic, and then stop it and add the tomatoes, and process until moderately smooth.  Then pour all of it into the oil and simmer for about 20 minutes or until a little less thick than you usually would, because it will bake later. (If you don't have a food processor, then put through a food mill afterwards. If you don't have a food mill, it will still taste fine, but not be as smooth as you might like.)  Add seasonings to taste.  You can freeze this of course.

Filling for pasta shells (for one package, about)

• Small onion, chopped
•  1 cp of chopped frozen spinach
• 1 lb. of ricotta
• 2 TB grated parmesan
• Salt, pepper

Sauté a chopped small onion in a generous amount of olive oil gently until soft. Add about a cup of frozen chopped spinach, and keep cooking until the spinach is cooked through (but just barely.) Cool it a bit, and put it in a food processor with 1 lb. of ricotta. (The better the ricotta, the better this is, of course.  Whole Foods has a very delicious kind.) Add about 2 TB freshly grated parmesan, and spin it all together until it's well mixed. Without the processor, just chop up the spinach and onion mix as well as you can, and stir it into the ricotta, etc. Add salt, black pepper to taste. This is good enough to eat on its own. Fill each pasta shell with a few TB of filling. 

Put some tomato sauce on the bottom of a 9 by 13 inch pan, and then the filled shells, and then cover with the rest of the sauce, and sprinkle with some more grated parmesan. Bake at 350 for about 25 min.- cover with parchment paper for the first 15 minutes, or it will get dried out - or until it looks just right and is heated through.

To do this ahead of time, you can freeze the filled shells - Place them well separated on parchment paper on a cookie sheet, and slide that into the freezer.  Then when  they're good and frozen, you can put them in a plastic bag. When you want to cook them, you can bake them as above - you'll just  need to cook them longer.