There are a LOT of recipes out there for stuffed shells! I was trying to figure out what to make for Mother’s Day dinner when everyone was coming over to my apartment. I had a box of stuffed shells languishing in the cupboard, so I decided to use them. I didn’t realize it would be so hard to pick a recipe! I searched and searched, and eventually chose this one that I found at Taste of Home. I could have looked all day, but I needed to get the grocery store. I chose this recipe because I wanted one that had meat *and* cheese, and didn’t need too many additional ingredients from the store. In the end, it went over very well with the family, and you wouldn’t go wrong with these!

Jumbo pasta shells, onion, Italian sausage, Parmesan cheese, mozzarella cheese, cheddar cheese, cream cheese, egg, salt, pepper, cinnamon (optional), dried minced onion, basil, oregano, parsley, garlic, sugar, tomato sauce.

Put your diced onion in a large skillet. In the interest of full disclosure, I’m not a big fan of onion. After I took the next picture, I decided this was too much onion and took some back out of the pan.

Add one pound of Italian sausage.

Cook the sausage and onions until the sausage is no longer pink.

Drain the sausage, and transfer to a large bowl.

Add 8 oz of cream cheese, cubed up. It will combine easier this way.

and 1 egg.

Stir until the cream cheese and the egg are well combined with the sausage.

To this mixture, add 1 cup of the mozzarella

2 cups of cheddar cheese

1 cup grated parmesan. Yes, I used the stuff in the green can.

1 cup small curd cottage cheese

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 /4 teaspoon pepper

1/8 teaspoon cinnamon. This is supposed to be the optional “secret” ingredient. I probably wouldn’t bother with it the next time.

Mix it all up until it’s well combined.

Meanwhile, cook the shells according to the package directions. Drain, and then rinse in cold water to stop the cooking. Cooling them off will also make them easier to handle!

Stuff each pasta shell with a generous spoonful of the meat and cheese mixture. I ran out of the stuffing mixture at the same time I ran out of room in my 9×13 pan, but I still had some shells left over. I did use more than the 24 shells called for in the recipe.

In a separate bowl, dump in your 29 ounce can of tomato sauce.

Add 1 Tbs dried minced onion

1 1/2 teaspoons basil

1 1/2 teaspoons parsley

1 teaspoon oregano

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

1 teaspoon of sugar

and 2 cloves minced garlic (1 teaspoon of the stuff in the jar)

Stir it all up.

Spoon the sauce over the shells in the pan. Cover with foil. At this point, I put the pan in the fridge because I wasn’t expecting my dinner guests for several hours yet. When you’re ready, bake (still covered) at 350F for 45 minutes.

After 45 minutes, remove the foil. Sprinkle a cup of mozzarella cheese on top, and return to the oven for 5-10 minutes for the cheese to melt.

Cheese Stuffed Shells
Taste of Home

1 pound bulk Italian sausage
1 large onion, chopped
1 package (10 ounces) frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry
1 package (8 ounces) cream cheese, cubed
1 egg, lightly beaten
2 cups (8 ounces) shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese, divided
2 cups (8 ounces) shredded cheddar cheese
1 cup 4% cottage cheese
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon, optional
24 jumbo pasta shells, cooked and drained
SAUCE:
1 can (29 ounces) tomato sauce
1 tablespoon dried minced onion
1-1/2 teaspoons dried basil
1-1/2 teaspoons dried parsley flakes
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoon Domino® or C&H® Granulated Pure Cane Sugar
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper

Directions:
In a large skillet, cook sausage and onion over medium heat until meat is no longer pink; drain. Transfer to a large bowl. Stir in the spinach, cream cheese and egg. Add 1 cup mozzarella, cheddar, cottage cheese, Parmesan, salt, pepper and cinnamon if desired; mix well.
Stuff pasta shells with sausage mixture. Arrange in two 11-in. x 7-in. baking dishes coated with cooking spray. Combine the sauce ingredients; spoon over shells.
Cover and bake at 350° for 45 minutes. Uncover; sprinkle with remaining mozzarella. Bake 5-10 minutes longer or until bubbly and cheese is melted. Let stand for 5 minutes before serving. Yield: 12 servings.

I can’t recall exactly why now, but a couple months ago, I was googling Chop Suey. What I discovered was that Chop Suey is in fact, not Chinese food at all (kind of a no brainer since they don’t eat most of the things we call Chinese food in China) but is a wholly American dish of questionable origins. But that’s okay because this questionable AmericanChinese dish is one of my absolute favorites from when I was growing up. I just finally made it myself for the first time.

This makes a HUGE amount of food. Growing up, there were four of us, including my dad and my brother who can put away astonishing amounts of chop suey, and there was always plenty left over to eat on for the next several days. I should have taken this into account when cooking for myself because I ate chop suey until I was sick to death of it, and probably barely made it halfway through this batch. So if you make it exactly as written, be prepared for a lot of food. If I make it again for just me, I’ll probably use one can of vegetables and go from there.

Here’s what you’ll need:

Chop Suey meat, 3 cans of chop suey vegetables, 1 can of sliced water chestnuts, can of mushrooms, bead molasses, soy sauce, flour, milk, rice and a little bit of oil. Also optional, chow mein noodles.

To begin with, put a little bit of whatever oil you’re using in the bottom of a large stock pot. You can use whatever you’d like. I used olive oil, the original “recipe” called for shortening.

Roll your chop suey meat in flour. I have two notes about the meat:
1) We have a supermarket locally that actually sells a package labeled Chop Suey Meat. If yours doesn’t, go for pork for stir fry. My dad has also made this with a combination of beef and pork and that’s turned out well.
2) When I bought the meat, I thought one package looked too small, and bought two packages. When I went to actually make this, I second guessed myself and only used one of them. I should have stuck with my first instincts– I would have been much happier if there had been more pork in my chop suey.

Okay, moving on.

Imagine a picture of me putting the flour coated pork into the pan with the oil, and cooking until the meat is browned. I forgot to take a picture of that step. When that’s done…

Open your chop suey vegetables and pour one can into the pan.

Followed by a second can…

… and a third.

There’s already water chestnuts in the chop suey vegetables, but we really like them so we add an additional can of them. Feel free to leave them out if water chestnuts aren’t exactly your cup of tea. Otherwise, go ahead and dump those on top.

Then add in a can of mushrooms.

And shake in some soy sauce. I don’t have an amount here. My mother is the queen of refusing to give me measurements. I know, I hate it too. She did caution me against adding too much soy sauce at this point, so just shake a little in, you’ll supplement your plate with more soy sauce later so no harm if you don’t get a lot in now.

Next, you’re going to add your bead molasses. The recipe calls for 2 tablespoons. My mom said that she usually just pours enough in to fill her wooden spoon, and then stirs it in. So that’s what I did… obviously that’s much easier than trying to measure out something with molasses in the name into a measuring spoon and then trying to get it back out and into your dish. No thanks.

Give it all a good stir, and then let the whole thing simmer on the stove for several hours, stirring occasionally. That part’s not in the original recipe, but I can’t leave anything alone, so I do a lot of stirring.

This is what mine looked like after it cooked for a few hours. It’s looking good already, but before you serve the chop suey it still needs to be thickened. I don’t have one of those highfalutin’ fancy shakers, so I improvise with an empty peanut butter jar.

Put some flour in the jar… I think I used 1/2 cup of a gluten free flour.

Add in milk, but leave enough room in the jar for things to mix around once you put the lid on!

Then shake for all you’re worth! And kindly ignore how badly I am in need of a manicure. Unless you’d like to buy me one because I hate to admit it, but my poor cuticles look much worse than that now! This weather is killing me!

Anyways, when you’re done shaking up your flour and milk mixture and you have it as combined as you can get it, and you’re done admiring your manicure, go ahead and pour it into your pot.

Give it a good stir, and this part of the meal is done!! You’ll still need to make some rice. I used minute rice, cooked it in the microwave according to the package directions.

So put some rice on your plate.

Spoon some of the chop suey mixture on top. This is the last picture that I took, but I also put more soy sauce on top of my plate. Normally I’d also serve this with a handful of chow mein noodles, but I was trying to make this dish gluten free, and chow mein noodles are certainly NOT gluten free! I didn’t miss them as much as I thought I would though!

Chop Suey

Chop Suey Meat
3 cans of chop suey vegetables
1 can mushrooms
1 can sliced water chesnuts
2 T. bead molasses
Soy Sauce

Roll chop suey meat in flour and brown in shortening. Add remaining ingredients. Simmer for several hours. Before serving, add milk and flour mixture (1/2 – 3/4 cup flour w/ milk in shaker). Serve with rice and chow mein noodles.