When it starts to get cold and rainy outside, most people crave comfort foods like stews and casseroles. I crave Italian food; it’s just the way I was raised. The funny thing is, my wife now shares this craving. So yesterday I decided to make some stuffed shells. If you’re going to take the time to make dishes like meatballs, stuffed shells or manicotti, you might as well make a lot and freeze them. It’s just too difficult and inconvenient to make small batches. So I bought all the ingredients to make cheese-stuffed shells and meat-stuffed shells.

There are a thousand different recipes out there for the meat stuffing. Most of them involve beef, cheese and spinach, but I’ve been a big fan of that style. It tastes like a fancy version of hamburger helper masquerading as a healthy meal. I like my meat shells to taste more like meatballs on the inside so I’ve developed my own technique. It’s laborious, but it’s a perfect hobby for a rainy day.

My base recipe calls for a pound each of ground beef and pork. To prep, I chop some sage, a red onion and about five cloves of garlic. In the food processor, I chop some stale bread for breadcrumbs and then a small bin of button mushrooms. Finally, I brown everything (except the sage and breadcrumbs) in a heavy pot. After I pour out the fat, I brown the mixture again with a few teaspoons of tomato paste until it starts to burn. Then I deglaze the pot with about a half cup of beef stock and reduce that down until everything dries out again. This is when I season the mixture to taste with salt and pepper. Then I take the pot off the heat and stir in the breadcrumbs and sage. The mixture develops a very beefy taste and a soft texture.

After the mixture cools a little, I add a handful of shredded parmesan cheese (maybe 3/4 cup) and a big handful of shredded mozzarella (more than 1 cup). I add it at this point because I don’t want the cheese to melt too much or else it’ll make it more difficult to stuff the shells later on.

The cheese shells seem easier to make because they have much less prep work, but it’s tough to season them correctly. Too much salt and you have to balance out the mixture with cream until it gets watery. Too little and the ricotta mixture comes out dry and tasteless. So it’s a balancing act that requires a little practice. My base recipe calls for a large container of ricotta, three cups of shredded mozzarella, a cup of Italian blend cheese, two eggs, minced fresh herbs (oregano, parsley, basil and thyme) and salt and pepper to taste. Sometimes I throw in a little garlic and/or onion powder. After that, I add enough cream (between ¼-¾ cup) to soften the mixture and mellow the taste.

Next, you boil the noodles. I usually cook two boxes of jumbo shells in two batches in a large pasta pot. You end up with more shells than you’ll need, but half of them will tear and be useless anyway. Cook them until they’re a tiny bit firmer than al dente. They’ll finish cooking in the oven. When they’re done, you strain and pour them into an ice bath. This immediately stops the cooking process and makes them easy to work with.

Just like with lasagna, you pour some sauce in the bottom of the casserole dish so they won’t burn. Finally, you stuff the shells with a large spoon. I used to hate doing this, but now that I have a TV in the kitchen, I don’t mind so much.

Like I said earlier, if you’re going to make a recipe this cumbersome, you might as well make a lot:

When they’re all stuffed, you top everything with more sauce (I used three cans of cheap marinara sauce) and more cheese. Any bit of shell that doesn’t get at least a little wet will harden up in the oven, so make sure you rub some sauce over any exposed noodles with your fingers. Finally, cover the dishes with foil and bake them on 350° until the sauce is bubbling. This might sound weird, but when I think they’re done, I usually stick my finger into one of the cheese shells to make sure it’s piping hot throughout. If you take them out too soon, the cheese won’t be fully melted and the egg won’t have tempered. Of course, cooking them too long might mean you end up with soggy shells, but that’s where experience pays off. Like anything in life, you get better as you go.

We froze two batches and cooked the rest:

They came out great. The cheese shells were really creamy and the meat shells had a soft, subtle mushroom taste. Plus, we now have two more gourmet ‘go-to’ meals in the freezer. I swear I could eat this stuff every day.

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