Stuffed Shells... sounds easy right?

And here starts the second installment of my blog : )

Recently I signed up for Pinterest and have been pinning all kinds of pizza recipes, and ofcourse Pasta recipes, Jons favorite.  I was feeling inspired and decided to try my hand at something I've never made before.  Stuffed Shells.  The recipe looked simple enough, only 8 ingredients.   I wanted to start small so I wouldn't encounter a kitchen catastrophe.  My first mistake was going to Target for the ingredients.. I figured they would have everything but I was wrong.. Most of the ingredients were easy to find except the cheese and the garlic,  I had to stare down the veggie section to find the garlic, and the Ricotta cheese was in a completely different cheese section then the Mozzarella cheese. odd. The one ingredient I still couldn't find was the Pasta Shells, which seem pretty darn important in a stuffed shells recipe.  I looked all over the pasta isle, penne.. linguine..fusilli.. angel hair.. no pasta shells anywhere. I kinda freaked out and mentally tweaked the recipe.. I could make Stuffed shells without having actual shells. Just make any kind of pasta, we used Egg Noodles, and layer the "stuffing" on top and sprinkle cheese on that.  Walking out of Target, I still wasn't completely sure it would work. I didn't want to make something that would taste terrible, or that Jon would refuse to eat.  We were in for a challenge.  

While waiting for the water to boil, I began to relax.. maybe this will work.  While the pasta was cooking I started heating up the sausage, and added the garlic and measured a cup of spinach.  Jon nicely pointed out that the thawed spinach looked "super nasty" ..(thanks babe) After that I drained the pasta and spooned it into a baking pan, then I layered the "stuffing" on top.   I popped that in the oven and baked it for 20 minutes, turning the baking pan halfway through.  One annoying thing about our oven is the heat isn't evenly distributed. (found that out due to a unfortunate mushy pumpkin pie incident.)   When it came out of the oven it actually smelled pretty good, looked slightly funny but none the less.  The "stuffed egg noodles" surprisingly tasted really good, but of course would have tasted even better in shells. All in All the Stuffed Shell challenge taught me some things.   

   

   #1 - Don't freak out- things happen

   #2 -Sometimes you need to change ingredients

   #3 - ( Third and last of all) Just like Mrs.Frizzle said, "Take Chances, Make Mistakes, and Get Messy"

I'm still not quite sure why I started this blog, maybe because I've seen Julie and Julia too many times.I hope this blog lets me expand my cooking expertise and learn tons about my cooking style.   

This is what the Stuffed Shells Pasta looked like after it was in the fridge for a while.  

Next recipie I am going to tackle is this gem.   Bacon and Beer Griddle Cakes  I mean who doesn't love Breakfast for dinner?