stuffed shells

So my ex is in town.  Again.  And he likes Italian food.  A lot.  So, tonight I made one of his favorites: stuffed shells.  Now, I actually made two pans (one a 13x9, shown here, and another 8x8, not pictured.) We ate about 1/3 of the shells that I cooked, so that will show in my cost calculations.  The remainder was boxed up and frozen for future "easy" meals.  And just in case you're wondering "does she ever actually pull those leftovers out and re-heat them?" the answer is yes.  Quite often, actually.

I started by boiling a whole box of jumbo shells and cooking a whole family pack of hamburger (shells $1.39, on sale, hamburger $5.68).  The shells I boiled, as I always do, with a little bit (prob 2 Tbsp) of vegetable oil in the pot, to keep them from sticking to the pan or eachother.  The hamburger was pan-fried with half a large diced onion, about 1 Tbsp "Italian seasonings" and 1 tsp garlic.  Oh, and I also set the oven for 400 degrees.  Don't forget that part.

The lump in the middle of the pan is the frozen mozzarella

When the burger was cooked, I added a 24-oz container of cottage cheese (because it costs 1/3, per pound, of what ricotta cheese does, and in pasta shells it tastes so close I dare you to tell them apart!) about 1/2 pound of bulk mozzarella (2 handfuls) and 4 slices of wheat bread, hand-torn into small pieces (about the size of a thumbnail).  This was my mother's doing.  She always added shredded bread to her meatballs, meatloaf, stuffed shells, and manicotti.  Why? Because meat averages $3 a pound, cheese averages $4 a pound, and bread averages $1 a pound.  Throwing in a little bread gives you more stuffing for your money.  It absorbs a lot of the liquid in the cottage cheese, too, hiding the fact that you're using a half-price substitute in the first place.

It was here that I ran into my first real snag of the evening: no spaghetti sauce.  I found this hard to believe, since just a few weeks ago my favorite brand, Francesco Rinaldi, was on sale for $1 a jar at Costas, and I could have sworn I bought a bunch of it.  But either that was longer ago than I thought, or we've been eating a lot more pasta than I thought.  Either way, the only jar I had was an already-opened jar, in my fridge.  It was nearly full, so that's a plus.  I briefly pondered going to the grocery store, but dinner was already running a little bit later than usual, and I didn't want to prolong deliciousness.  So, I added some ketchup to the jar, a little bit of water, and shook it up.  It actually worked fairly well.  I was surprised.

When the shells were done cooking, I drained out the hot water and poured in cold, and let it sit a moment.  I repeated that process, and the second time around, the shells were cool enough to hold in my hand.  So, I stuffed them with the good stuff and put them in the pan.  Hint: if using a coated cake pan, instead of glass, you might end up with cheese stuck to the bottom if it drizzles out, so pour about 2 Tbsp of spaghetti sauce in the bottom of the pan, smear it around with your fingers, and then stuff the shells.  

A gentle reminder: this family, including my ex, ate 1/3 of the meal prepared, so if you DON'T have a deep freezer, or a husband or teenager to eat a mountain of stuffed shells, only use 1/3 of what I've used.  I put the two pans of shells in the oven for 15 minutes with just a sprinkling of mozzarella on top.  (maybe another 1/4 lb on BOTH pans)  For a side dish, we had bread and [fake] butter.  As a family, we ate 7 slices.  I had my youngest set the table.

So our totals for tonight are... shells (of which we ate a third): $1.39 + $5.68 burger + 8 cents for 1/2 onion + $1 jar of sauce + $2.44 bulk cheese (3/4 lb mozzarella at $3.25/lb) + $2.99 cottage cheese + 36 cents bread in shells ($1.99 loaf of generic wheat divided by 22 slices is 9 cents a slice) = 13.94, divided by 3 = $4.65 for the shells.  The extra 7 slices of bread would be 63 cents, and the misc. butter and italian seasonings MIGHT be another 10 cents, so $5.38 so far, then dessert was leftover birthday cupcakes (daughter's birthday was yesterday), which was a $1 mix with maybe 50 cents homemade frosting, made 24 cupcakes ate 6 tonight, so cost of dessert was 38 cents, making tonight's GRAND TOTAL

 (and I am so ready for bed).... $5.76

Birthday princess with a meal fit for a Queen