Recipe: Spinach and Ricotta Stuffed Shells

Anybody that knows me really well knows that I looooove pasta. Most of the time when it's my turn to make dinner, I make pasta.The latest dish I made were these delicious pasta shells stuffed with this delicious spinach and cheese mixture. I saw this tasty recipe from pinterest. It looked so good I had to try it and I don't regret it at all. It was fairly easy to make and everybody in the house enjoyed it. Since that was the case, I thought I would share it so you guys can enjoy it too.

Ingredients

• 24 Jumbo pasta shells (I didn't end up having enough mixture to fill all 24)
• 1 15-oz Container of ricotta cheese
• 2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
• 1/2 cup shredded parmesan
• 1 10-oz package of frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry
• 1 large egg
• salt and pepper
• 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
• pinch of ground nutmeg (I didn't use the nutmeg when I made this because i didn't have any. Oops!
• 1 26-oz jar of spaghetti sauce

Preparation

1. First, you want to go ahead and preheat your oven to 375 deg. and spray a 9 by 13 inch baking pan with cooking spray. The next part is really easy, just boil the pasta by the directions on the box the shells came in. After, just drain them and leave them on the counter to cool.
2. During or after the pasta cooks, make the filling for them. In a big bowl put the ricotta cheese, 1 cup of the mozzarella, shredded Parmesan, chopped spinach, egg, salt and pepper Italian seasoning, and nutmeg.

      3. For the next part, take 3/4 cup of the pasta sauce and spread a even layer of it in the bottom of the baking dish. Now, for the fun part. It is time... to.... start the process of.... filling THE PASTA NOODLES! I don't know why, but I really enjoyed doing this part.

             Pic 1                                                    Pic 2                                                    Pic 3

 

After the shells are stuffed, put them on top of the spaghetti sauce (Pic 2). Then spread the remaining pasta sauce over the shells (pic 2), and then top everything with the mozzarella cheese (pic 3).

      4. Cover the baking dish with foil and place in the oven for 35 min. After the 35 minutes are up, take off the foil and place back in the oven for the last ten minutes until the cheese is bubbly and begins to brown.

Note: I didn't use foil because I was out so the cheese may be a little brown, but it didn't alter the taste at all.

After that, you are left with this delicious pasta dish that everyone will love. I hope you guys enjoy this meal as much as I did. I'll be back with a lot more posts soon.

Love

xxx