Sunday Night Feast

I decided to make something that I haven't had in literally years: Stuffed shells. Stuffed shells were something that my mother used to make when she was in a cooking mood and she would work for hours to make and we would eat it up in a matter of minutes. I decided to re-do this classic feast and make it utterly special by making my own sauce and doing something special with the stuffing for the shells.

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First, I made the sauce. This is a mild variation on the sauce Alex Guarnashelli made for her eggplant parmesan.

First you need two large sweet onions, sliced radially, and six cloves of garlic; smashed then minced finely. Once the onions are sliced, add them to a large, 12 inch or larger, sauté pan that has two tablespoons of olive oil in it and has been heating over medium heat. Season with 2 teaspoons of Kosher Salt, 1 teaspoon of crushed red chili flakes and 1 teaspoon of sugar, then sweat for 5-7 minutes or until the onions are "translucent," then add the garlic, reduce the heat to medium-low and cook for another 12-15 minutes. Then add 1/2 cup of a sweet white wine, I recommend Breitenbach Winery's Frost Fire, then reduce to 2 tablespoons of syrup. Then add 2 large cans of peeled Italian style tomatoes. Cover and cook for 90 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes. Then uncover and let simmer for another 7-10 minutes to let it thicken, then remove from the heat. After you have removed the sauce from the heat, chiffonade 10-12 large basil leaves and stir in, letting the residual heat "cook" the leaves and perfume the sauce.

For the filling for the shells, you first start with one, large nine ounce package of spinach, sauteed in 2 tablespoons of butter and mixed with three cloves of garlic. The spinach will wilt down to practically nothing; compared to what you started with. When the spinach has wilted, there will be a considerable amount of water left behind that also contains grit, you'll want to separate this from the leaves. I do this by tilting the pan down to one side while squeezing the spinach to the opposite to get any excess water out, then while the pan is still tilted grabbing the spinach with tongs.

Once the spinach is done, mix it with a large container of ricotta cheese, 1/2 cup of parmesan cheese, 1 tablespoon of Kosher salt, 1 teaspoon of freshly cracked pepper and 1/8 teaspoon of freshly ground nutmeg.

Once the sauce and the filling are finished, you'll want to start on the pasta shells, which I purchase rather than make. Rather than boil them for the time listed on the package, I boil them for seven and a half minutes, they'll still be pretty "crunchy," but more importantly, they'll be par cooked so that when they are baked they'll come out perfectly al-dente. After the shells are finished boiling, drain and spray with cold water to stop the cooking and to make them manageable to fill.

To start making the baked shells, first put in about 1/2 cup of the sauce on the bottom of a baking dish.

Then fill the pasta shells with one to two tablespoons of the cheese filling, lining them in the baking dish how ever you can to get as many in it as possible.

After the shells are in the pan, cover them with the remaining sauce, and top with shredded mozzarella and parmesan cheese. Bake, covered, at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Then turn the broiler on high and cook for another 3-5 minutes or until the cheese is as brown and crispy as you like. Then let stand for 5-10 minutes, serve and eat. And eat some more.