stuffed shells

i am by no means an expert at cooking italian cuisine.  however, i have cooked my mom's stuffed shells recipe for italians before, and they have told me how good they are.  i figure this is pretty high praise...especially considering how she originally got the recipe off a box of pasta.

i've adapted the recipe in recent years due to my own experimentation and due to the fact that mom has incorporated vegetables into her shells.  and since i happen to like how that works, i've blatantly stolen her methods.

 ingredients:
- box of large pasta shells
- container of ricotta cheese (i used a 15 oz container)
- 2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
- 1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
- 2 eggs
- parsley
- garlic powder
- basil/oregano
- salt/pepper
- jar of spaghetti sauce (i used almost a whole 24 oz jar)
- one zucchini (smallish)
- sausage (i used two links of pre-cooked italian-style chicken sausage)

note that this recipe won't make enough stuffing for a whole box of shells.  i tend to overstuff the shells, so i end up with 16-20.

preparation:
cook the shells according to the package instructions.  while the shells are cooking, mix the three cheeses, the eggs, herbs, and spices.  note: reserve a little mozzarella for the topping since it melts so nicely.  in the cooking pan, spoon a thin layer of sauce.  add chopped sausage and zucchini to the dish.  i sliced the zucchini into medallions and then sliced each medallion in thirds.  the sausage, i simply cut it into small chunks.

after the shells are cooked and drained (let them cool a little bit), spoon about 1 tbsp of cheese mixture into each one.  place the stuffed shells into the pan.  spoon more sauce over the pan of shells (enough to coat them all) and sprinkle with cheese.  as i said before, the recipe calls for mozzarella, but i had to make use of parmesan...the horrors!

cover and bake at 350°F for about 30 minutes (or until the sauce starts to bubble).

i only fit maybe 10 shells into my pan.  however, the lovely thing about this recipe is that you can freeze the shells for use later.  i stashed the remaining 7-8 shells on a pan in the freezer for a couple hours until they hardened.  that way, they're easy to transfer into freezer bags.

verdict:
i know this is a good recipe; it's pretty much tried and true.  there are a few things that didn't work quite so well this time, though.  i don't think i cooked everything quite long enough.  although the sauce was starting to bubble, the zucchini was a touch al dente.  this may be in part due to the pan i used; it isn't one that's cooked shells before, so i maybe needed a little extra time.  also, i didn't have any aluminum foil, so i had to tent the pan with parchment paper (with aluminum on one side).  necessity is the mother of invention!