Whip It Up Wednesday: Stuffed Shells

Stuffed Shells (recipe makes 6 servings)

1 egg

12 oz Ricotta Cheese or 2 C cottage cheese (I use a 20 oz? cottage cheese)

16 oz Ziti Pasta, slightly undercooked (I use a box of Large Shells)

1 1/2 C Spaghetti sauce

10 oz spinach (optional but delicious)

 Combine egg, cottage/ricotta cheese and spinach. Recipe calls to food process but I simply mashed it all together with a whisk. Boil your Ziti or Shells until they are a few minutes undercooked. Drain and cool to handle. Fill shell or ziti with the cheese mixture. Place in containers for freezing or into a casserole pan for cooking (or split it up for both). Some recipes call to freeze just the mixture but I like to freeze with it in the shell for even easier meals. Cover with spaghetti sauce (I add a little to the bottom of the pan as well) and cook at 350* for 30 minutes. Additional cheese mixture or mozzarella cheese can be used to top the dish.

 forgive my poor pictures...

...and plate presentation

Rating:  5 stars

-super easy to prepare (and freeze).  Tastes delicious (my father-in-law had three servings and I consider him a little hard to please).  

-this recipe comes from the 30 Gourmet's Big Book of Freezer Cooking book.  It is one we've made before and love. It freezes well and tastes great either fresh or post-frozen.

Whip It Up Wednesday -- Banana Zucchini Bread

I love banana bread and I love zucchini bread.  I had purchased bananas for my girls and then some zucchini to make bread.  Seeing as how the bananas were becoming overripe and I still hadn't made my zucchini bread I decided to combine the two.  So here is my first minor experiment in recipe adjusting.

Banana Zucchini Bread

1/2 C shortening

1 C sugar

2 eggs

2 ripe bananas

1 small to medium zucchini grated

1 C all purpose white flour

1 C wheat flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 C nuts (optional)

Cream shortening, sugar, eggs, bananas, grated zucchini and vanilla together.  Sift in flour, soda, cinnamon and salt.  Blend all of your ingredients together, mixing in nuts at the end if you desire.  Pour batter evenly into  two greased/floured loaf pans.  Bake for 45 minutes at 350* F.  If making muffins cook at 350* for 35 minutes. 

Notes:  You can do this recipe with three bananas instead of the zucchini.  My original recipe called for 2 cups white flour but I have become of fan of putting in at least half wheat flour.  I also decided to add some cinnamon.  My loafs both stuck to the pan using spray so I would recommend the grease and flour method for this one.

Rating:  5 stars 

-I really enjoyed this one.  It was easy to throw together and cook despite the disaster in my kitchen (more on that later).  I like the mixture of flavors.  Also my girls definitely enjoyed this bread and were begging for more (you know the open mouth and "ah ah ah" type begging).