Be a superhero for vegetarians...

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As recipes go, this one is bloody simple. And not only is it bloody simple but it's bloody good! Plus it's vegetarian so you can take it to nearly any potluck and it will be a real crowd pleaser. Plus you'll be considered a real hero (almost a demi-god if you will) to the vegetarians, cuz a lot of potlucks I've been to are real downers for the vegetarians. It usually ends up being a few brave vegetarians camped out around the humuus bowl chewing on carrots and celery sticks. Blah.

Oh you vegetarians. This recipe is for you.

So get a bag of jumbo pasta shells (shown left) boiling in salted water. They take about 15 - 20 minutes to cook. While that's going on, pull out a mixing bowl. Drop in the white of one egg (you can use egg substitute). Throw in a container of ricotta cheese. (If you've never used ricotta...it's an unripened, fresh, soft cheese that similar to cottage cheese in texture. I suppose cottage cheese could be used as a subsitute, but you should be able to find ricotta somewhere in the dairy aisle).

Dump in spinach (either a drained can of spinach, a package of thawed frozen spinach or boiled and chopped up fresh spinach. Canned spinach is probably the most tasteless of the three alternatives but is certainly the most convenient). You can play around with the ratio of ricotta cheese to canned/frozen/cooked spinach. I usually go with a good handful of spinach to 500 grams of ricotta. I find that if you add too much spinach to the mixture, it gets a little bitter. Shred a lot of mozzarella cheese into the bowl. Add any herbs you like.

Stir those pasta shells.

Open up a can or jar of your favourite pasta sauce. Make you own sauce if you have the time. Take only 3 spoonfuls of the sauce and mix it into the spinach and ricotta cheese mixture. Save the rest of that sauce...you're going to need it later. Mix the spinach and ricotta mixture together. If the mixture is way too runny, add more mozzarella cheese. It should be a just a little thick.

Preheat oven to 400F. When the pasta shells are done, drain and cool them with cold water. Take each pasta shell and stuff it with the spinach and ricotta mixture. Place it onto a baking or casserole dish. Repeat until all the shells are stuffed. Cover the shells with the rest of that pasta sauce. Blanket the sauce/stuffed pasta with shredded mozzarella. Drizzle olive oil on top, if you want.

Slide the pan into the oven. Wait until the cheese melts and gets golden brown. Spoon a few shells onto a clean plate. Garnish with finely chopped parsley, black pepper and/or shavings of fresh parmesan on top (if you have any).

This stuff freezes remarkably well. All the vegetarians go "hooray". The end.

Posted by Dave at February 01, 2004 02:50 PM