So Many Dishes

I’ve only been to Italy once, but it wasn’t what most people think of when they consider a visit to Italy. We flew into Turin, and spent a week on a walking tour in the Piedmont, based in the little village of Montelupo d’Alba. We had great fun and ate terrific food, but never saw a red sauce, or much pasta, for that matter. We ate the best pork I’ve ever tasted and delicious wood fire- roasted rabbit. We tasted so many excellent wines that, by the last day, one of the men in our group quipped that we were a drinking group with a walking problem.

Sunday evening’s dinner was definitely the kind of meal we think of as Italian: pasta, tomato sauce, and plenty of cheese which, combined with spinach, I used to make stuffed shells Florentine.

This is not the sort of dish I would normally expect to find in Cooking Light, but, as one of my Weight Watchers leaders used to say, it should have been called Cooking Lighter. The recipe calls for part-skim and fat-free cheeses, as well as a fat-free marinara. I draw the line at fat-free cheese. I’m the same way with milk; I’ll drink low-fat milk, but not skim. I don’t drink it that often, so I think a compromise is okay. So, for this recipe, I used part-skim mozzarella and ricotta, and it was fine.

Although stuffed shells looks complicated, it’s really a simple dish, and one that can be assembled ahead of time. All of the filling ingredients get mixed together, which I did while the shells were cooking, and assembly only takes minutes. If you don’t have your own marinara on hand—and I didn’t —a bottled sauce works just fine. This was the first time I cut the recipe in half, since in it was just Ken and me, with no problem. I’m including the full recipe.

Stuffed Shells Florentine

• 2 cups shredded part-skim mozzarella, shredded
• 1/2 cup grated fresh Parmesan cheese
• 2 eggs
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
• 2 teaspoons dried basil
• 2 teaspoons dried oregano
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 (10-ounce) packages frozen chopped spinach, thawed, drained, and squeezed dry
• 1 15-ounce container part-skim ricotta cheese
• 24 cooked jumbo pasta shells
• Cooking spray
• 3 cups marinara or 1 (26-ounce) bottle of marinara or other pasta sauce (I used Rao’s tomato-basil sauce)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Combine 1 cup of the mozzarella cheese, Parmesan cheese, eggs, seasonings, spinach, and ricotta in a bowl, and mix thoroughly. Spoon mixture evenly into cooked shells. Arrange stuffed shells in a 13×9-inch baking dish coated with cooking spray. Pour marinara over stuffed shells and sprinkle with remaining 1 cup mozzarella. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Serves 4 to 6.

I love the spinach in the cheese mixture. I don’t want to make stuffed shells any other way. As a side, we had half of a ripe avocado left from the previous evening, when we’d made refried bean burritos. We both prefer the West Indian avocado varieties to the typical Hass avocado. Most varieties are larger, too, so I always need to plan what to do with the extra. I simply sliced the avocado and dressed it with lime juice. Ken may have added some olive oil to his, but we both enjoyed it. It also made for a colorful plate.

Happy eating!