Ricotta & Spinach Stuffed Shells

for one...

A couple of weekends ago, I had the luxury of spending quite a bit of time playing in the kitchen and took full advantage of it by making several dishes. This was my first time making stuffed shells and for the life of me, I can't figure out why I've never made these before given just how easy they were. What I really like about this dish is the that you can make up a whole batch and eat them right away, or you can do like I did: freeze them individually so you can pull out as many or as few as you want on a day that you just don't feel like cooking.

Ricotta & Spinach Stuffed Shells

for a crowd...

Ingredients:

1 Tbs. olive oil

1 shallot, minced

6 ounces spinach (I used fresh, but you could always use frozen/defrosted)

1 tsp. lemon pepper

1/2 tsp. garlic powder (go ahead... you know you want to use fresh)

1 tsp. dried basil

pinch of nutmeg

salt & pepper to taste

15 ounces ricotta cheese (I used part-skim instead of whole milk ricotta)

1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

18-24 jumbo shells, cooked shy of al dente and tossed in olive oil to prevent sticking  (different brands of pasta make different size "jumbo" shells)

Directions:

In a saute pan over medium-low heat, cook the shallot in olive oil until slightly softened, about 2-3 minutes. Stir in the spinach and all spices, continuing to cook until the spinach has wilted and most of the moisture has cooked out, about 6-8 minutes. Set aside to cool.

In a large bowl, combine the cheeses and the cooled spinach mixture. Fill each of the shells with the cheese mixture. Once all of the shells are stuffed, you've got a couple of options...

Option #1: Cover the bottom of a glass baking dish with your favorite marinara and nestle the stuffed shells down into the sauce. Drizzle on some olive oil , cover tightly with foil, and bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes before removing the foil and baking for another 10 minutes, or until the top is golden brown and bubbly.

Or, Option #2 (what I did): Spread out the stuffed shells on a lightly oiled baking sheet and place them into the freezer until they are frozen solid, about 2 hours. Once they're frozen, you can transfer them to a freezer bag and not worry about them sticking together. When you're ready to eat them, you can pull out as many as you want (bake up a big pan to feed a crowd, or pull out a few and bake in an individual casserole dish for one) and follow the directions in Option #1, although you'll need to add to the cooking time if they're frozen.

Enjoy!

Chocolate Almond Biscotti

I really like the classic Italian biscotti cookie, but I don't make them very often. Why, you ask? Essentially, I'm just too lazy. It's not that they're difficult to make, it's more so because they're time consuming what with the whole twice baking thing and my attention span (when it comes to baking) usually doesn't allow for something that takes longer than, say, 20 minutes. So saying, I found this recipe on one of my favorite food blogs (Closet Cooking) and really liked the fact that it's sort of a scaled down version; it only makes one log which translates into about 12 cookies. Yes, you still need to bake them twice- otherwise, they wouldn't be called biscotti- but hey, that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make every once in awhile. And of course, I had to tweak them ever so slightly... I swapped out the pistachios for almonds, and used plain ol' vegetable oil instead of olive oil. Now, if only I'd had some dried cherries on hand... oh, well. Next time, eh?  ;)

Chocolate Almond Biscotti

Ingredients:
1 cup AP flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/2 tsp. baking powder
pinch of salt
6 Tbs. sugar
2 eggs, beaten
2 Tbs. vegetable oil
splash of vanilla extract
1/4 cup sliced almonds
1/4 cup chocolate chips (I used dark chocolate)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a medium-sized mixing bowl, whisk together all of the dry ingredients. (In this case, the sugar counts as a "dry" ingredient.) Stir in the remaining ingredients until just combined. Pour the dough onto a baking sheet and, using slightly damp hands (it helps to combat the stickiness of the dough, trust me), form it into a log about 8 inches long and about 2 inches wide. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes then allow the log to cool on a wire rack for 35-40 minutes.

Drop the oven temperature to 325 degrees.

Once fully cooled, use a serrated knife to slice the log into 1/2 inch cookies. Place the cookies cut-side down on the baking sheet and bake at 325 degrees for 10 minutes, flip them over, and bake on the other side for another 10 minutes. Allow the biscotti (twice-baked cookies) to cool on a wire rack then pour yourself a strong cup of coffee and dig in.

Enjoy!

*Cook's note: These aren't overly sweet cookies so you may want to use milk chocolate or even semi-sweet chocolate instead of the dark that I used. *I* happen to like the fact that these turned out deeply chocolatey without being terribly sweet, but I can see where the addition of dried fruit (like cherries, prunes, or even apricots) would make for an interesting contrast in flavor.

(Addendum: So it's now been several days since I made these cookies, and I have to say that I'm not as impressed with them as I was when they were just an hour out of the oven. The texture is just not quite right; they're not nearly as crisp as they should be even though I've stored them in the same air-tight container I've put previous batches. So, while I do like the flavor, I don't think I'll be using this particular recipe again... instead, I'll probably just use this flavor profile and apply it to one of the other biscotti recipes I've used in the past that I know hold up well.)

Pasta e Fagioli (-ish)

This no-recipe recipe is sort of a pasta e fagioli meets cassoulet meets pasta bake. Basically, I used the flavor profile of the Italian sausage cassoulet I made awhile back but combined it with pasta and turned it into a baked casserole.

Pasta e Fagioli (-ish)

Ingredients:
olive oil
onion, diced
garlic powder (or fresh if you prefer)
dried rosemary, crushed
herbes de Provence
salt & pepper to taste
fire-roasted tomatoes, diced (I had the remains of an open can in the fridge)
hot Italian sausage, pre-cooked and diced (again, leftover in the fridge)
cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
pasta of choice, cooked shy of al dente (I used whole wheat shells)
Parmesan cheese, grated (fresh is best but the stuff in the green can will do)
panko bread crumbs

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a saute pan over medium heat, cook the onion in olive oil until slightly softened, about 3-5 minutes. Stir in all of the spices and tomatoes and continue to cook for another 2-3 minutes before adding the Italian sausage, beans, and pasta. Give a big stir to combine everything before dumping it all into an appropriate sized casserole dish. Top the pasta with the Parmesan and bread crumbs, drizzle on some more olive oil, and bake at 350 degrees until the top is golden brown and nice and crusty.

Enjoy!

(My) Classic Chicken Noodle Soup

Another comfort food classic, you really can't go wrong with good ol' chicken noodle soup...

(My) Classic Chicken Noodle Soup

Ingredients:
1 Tbs. olive oil
1 medium onion, diced
2 carrots, diced
2 ribs of celery, diced
1 bay leaf
1 Tbs. dried parsley
1 tsp. dried thyme
1 tsp. dried dill
1 tsp. garlic powder
salt & pepper to taste
6 cups of chicken stock (and yes, I actually used homemade stock)
2 cups of previously cooked chicken, shredded or diced
1 cup of corn (you guessed it- pulled straight from the freezer!)
8 ounces of egg noodles (I like to use the extra broad kind)

Directions:
In a large soup pot over medium heat, saute the vegs and all spices in olive oil until the vegs start to soften, about 8-10 minutes. Stir in the chicken (this is how I cooked mine, and I used mostly dark meat in the soup while saving the white meat for another dish) and corn, then pour in the chicken stock. Bring the soup to a boil over high heat and dump in the noodles before lowering the heat once more to medium and simmering the soup until the noodles are tender, about 6-8 minutes.

Enjoy!