Sausage Stuffed Pasta Shells

This post appeared on my other blog before I created this one. I felt that it belonged here as well.

Sausage Stuffed Pasta Shells.


Ingredients:
-1 box jumbo pasta shells
-About 13 oz. of pasta sauce
-15 oz tub of ricotta cheese
-About 1/2 c. mozzarella cheese, shredded
-About 2 tablespoons Parmesan cheese, grated
-1 tablespoon oregano
-About 1/2 teaspoon salt (to taste)
-About 1 teaspoon pepper
-Italian sausage
-About 1/4 c. mozzarella cheese, shredded for topping


1. Boil the pasta, and cook the Italian sausage in a frying pan. The sausage is best in small bits. But you can cook it how you like. Cook enough for the mixture and for the sauce if desired. Drain the sausage of fat, and allow to cool. When pasta is done boiling, drain and rinse with cool water.


2. To make the stuffing mixture, combine the Ricotta, mozzarella cheese, parmesan cheese, oregano, salt, pepper, and sausage once it is cooled.
3. Fill the pasta shells with the mixture, and place in a pan that is prepared by spraying with a non-stick cooking spray. I also placed a small amount of sauce in the bottom to prevent the shells from burning, and sticking to the pan.
4. Top the filled shells with the remaining sauce, and sausage. And sprinkle with mozzarella cheese.
5. Bake in oven at 350 for about 25 minutes.


Here are some pictures to show you what the process looked like.

Here is the pasta shells I used. The first step of course is to boil these. I only boiled 11 shells for two of us. (I wanted leftovers.) The key is to think about how many people you will be serving. 2 shells was plenty for each of us, with some bread and salad.

A small amount of sauce on the bottom of the pan.

One shell with filling.

Ready for the oven.

Ready to eat!