Stuff This Not That

Welcome to my NEW kitchen! Okay, well, it's not new-new, but it's new to me!!! Though it's not that much bigger than my old one, I feel like I have so much more room to spread out and really get cooking! You'll also see Ronnie in there - my trusty helper!

Today's meal is consisting of a stuffed shell that I have been making for awhile now. Being a vegetarian, the hardest part about cooking is all the prep-work that can go into it. I like this particular meal because it utilizes frozen vegetables! The only thing I have to prep is some fresh zucchini and opening cans!!!

To start the meal, I boil some lightly salted water and add around 18 shells.

After heating some olive oil in a skillet I add about a cup of frozen pepper and onion mix, along with some minced garlic. See??? No prep! Straight from the freezer to the skillet! LOVE IT!


This is my only major prepping-step! I cut up a medium zucchini. Not too bad at all!


I then add the chopped zucchini to the pepper-onion and garlic mix and let it cook for about 5 minutes. Then I add a small can of sliced black olives! Mm-mmm... Olives! I think it's the olives that really make this meal special.


My trusty helper Ronnie is seen here mixing low-fat ricotta, parmesan and part-skim mozzarella cheese. This recipe originally calls for an egg, but I was out - I honestly didn't even need it as it turned out fine in the end!


After the cheese mixture is together and the vegetables are done cooking, I add all the vegetables with the cheese and then mix in about a 1/4 cup of pasta sauce.

Once everything is good and mixed and the shells have been drained, I then proceed to stuff the shells and add them to a greased 9x13 dish. This really is the hardest step, only because it takes the longest and you have to be a little bit careful to not rip the shells.

Finally I dump a whole bunch of pasta sauce onto the shells. The more sauce the better in my household - especially since leftovers can get really dry if you were light on the sauce originally. I cover the dish with aluminum foil and bake it for about 35 minutes.

After the 35 minutes is up, I take it out of the oven, remove the foil and top with some extra mozzarella. Then it goes back into the oven for another 10 minutes or so.

This meal really does come together easily and it looks way harder than it really is! Two reasons to love it and make it often! Also - though I have never frozen them - they make GREAT leftovers for lunch the next day. ENJOY!