My Pasta Shells :)

I love this new thing our English-branch Relief Society is doing this year. We are doing cooking classes! It's fun for those of us new to the area to learn traditional Mexican dishes from some of the ladies and to have them learn some new dishes from us. Neat, huh? When it came my turn I decided to cook one of my go-to dishes, Ricotta-filled Pasta Shells with Homemade Tomato Sauce. It's a beautiful dish to look at and it tastes amazing. It's also one of the first dishes I made my husband while we were dating :)
Preparing the dish in front of them felt like I was hosting a cooking show and was a lot of fun. I forgot to add the wine to the sauce and the egg to the ricotta filling, haha! But it all went smoothly and I think they all learned a lot. At the end of the demonstration I pulled out a finished pan out of the oven for everyone to taste. I felt pretty fancy doing that, like I was Giada on the Food Network Channel, haha. But, oh man, it was good ;) I wanted to have more pictures, but I totally forgot I even had the camera with until the end and we were all eating.
It was great fun. Everyone loved them and went back for seconds until the pan was empty. Yay! Here is the outline I gave the ladies. So I don't use any measurement tools when I do it, so those numbers are just a guess as to about how much I think I use. Also, the sauce I made for them was really basic. I like to cook Italian sausage when I put the garlic and onions in the pan to add some meat to the dish :) Enjoy!

Laura Velez’s

Baked Spinach and Ricotta Stuffed Pasta Shells with Homemade Pasta Sauce

Ingredients: 

For the shells--                          For the sauce--

• 16 jumbo pasta shells                                                                              ●          2 Cans Diced Tomato, Italian herbs
• 1 tablespoon chopped basil                                                                    ●          ½ Red Wine
• 1/2 pound baby spinach                                                                         ●          2 tsp chopped onion
• 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped                                                               ●          2 tsp chopped garlic
• 1/2 pound ricotta cheese                                                                      ●          1 tsp basil, oregano, parsley                                         
• 3/4 pound mozzarella, parmesan, romano, asiago, grated                 ●          Salt, to taste
• 1 egg, lightly beaten                                                                               ●          Pepper, to taste
• Salt, to taste                                                                                           ●          2 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil
• Pepper, to taste                                                                                                                                 

                                                                                                                       

Method: 

Shells--

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add pasta shells and cook until al dente, about 10 minutes. Drain well then toss with oil in a large bowl; set aside. Set oven to 375 F.

Chop spinach and transfer to a large bowl. Together with the spinach, add the ricotta, garlic, egg, ½ cup of the cheese, and salt and pepper to taste. Mix together until all the ingredients are evenly distributed. 

Spread a few spoonfuls of marinara sauce in the bottom of a shallow baking dish large enough to hold the shells in a single layer. Fill each shell with spinach mixture and arrange in the dish. Pour remaining sauce over and around the stuffed shells and top with the remaining shredded cheese. Cover with foil and bake until hot throughout, 20 to 30 minutes, then uncover and continue baking until golden brown, about 10 minutes more.

Sauce—

Sweat garlic and onions in olive oil in a pan, add red wine. While the wine reduces in the pan, blend 1 can of diced tomatoes in a blender until smooth. Once the wine is finished reducing in the pan, add the blended tomato mixture. Add the 2^nd can of diced tomatoes (for chunkiness) and let it all simmer in the pan together. Add basil, parsley, and oregano, salt, and pepper. Simmer until the sauce reaches your desired thickness.