Recipe Wednesday: Stuffed Shells

Stuffed shells is one of the meals that I make one day and freeze enough for dinner on two more days. Sometimes, I finely chop broccoli to use instead of the chopped spinach, and we enjoy it just as much. It's a good way to sneak extra veggies into my older son, but it's no longer needed to sneak the veggies into him. He loves to eat plain, raw baby spinach and asks for it!

SAUSAGE AND RICOTTA STUFFED SHELLS

Ingredients

24 jumbo shells - cooked to al dente

1 lb ground sausage

15 oz ricotta, or light ricotta

8 oz shredded mozzarella, or Italian blend

9 oz chopped spinach - thawed and drained

¹/₂ tsp dried basil

(2) 26 oz jars of pasta sauce

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F.

Brown the sausage - be careful not to burn it! Ours was a little burnt because I had "help" from my three year old. lol

2. In a 10" skillet, brown and drain the sausage. 

The stuffing minus the mozzarella and sausage.

The well mixed stuffing mixture.

3. In a large bowl, combine the ricotta, 1 cup of the mozzarella, spinach and the basil. Mix well and then add the sausage.

Spread the sauce in the bottom of the baking dish.

4. Spread approximately ¹/₂ cup of sauce on the bottom of the baking dish.

I used up all of the stuffing mixture and there were a few empty shells leftover. I added them to each baking dish.

5. Spoon approximately 3 tbsp of the mixture into each shell and place in the baking dish. Pour remaining sauce over the filled shells. Sprinkle remaining cheese over the shells.

Two will be frozen for future meals and one will be dinner!

6. Bake for 35-40 minutes, or until heated through.

I wanted to get a picture of the baked dish, but my husband and son plated it up for us before I could. This was all that was left in the pan when I remembered that I needed the picture still. lol

I don't normally measure the mozzarella because we like it extra cheesy, so I just use a generous amount from the 5 lb. Costco bag of mozzarella that we buy. Because I separate the shells and freeze ²/₃ of them, I use a smaller baking dish and make sure that I have at least 8 shells in each Pyrex dish since that is the minimum we need for our family per dinner. Also, there was about half of the second jar of sauce left, but if you like it saucier, then use all of the second jar when topping the shells with sauce.

I hope you enjoy this meal as much as we do! 

Recipe Wednesday: Brown Sugar Chicken

This chicken recipe is sweet, but has just enough kick not to be overly sweet. My three year old son, who doesn't like much chicken at all, even says it's "Mmm! Good-licious!" when dipped in ranch dressing. So it's quite possibly a kid friendly recipe for those of you with picky eaters!

BROWN SUGAR CHICKEN

Ingredients

4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

4 tbsp brown sugar

2 tbsp paprika

3 tsp onion powder

1 tsp salt

2 tsp chili powder

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 425°F and lightly spray glass baking dish with cooking spray (or grease the baking dish with coconut oil).

Well mixed dry ingredients

2. Add dry ingredients to Ziploc® bag and shake to mix well. Add chicken and shake to coat chicken.

Optional: sprinkle the excess brown sugar mix on the chicken after coating the chicken

3. Bake uncovered for 15-25 minutes, or until juices run clear and internal temperature is 165°F.

I had to cut into the chicken to make sure it was fully cooked because my meat thermometer wasn't working properly

Enjoy!