Aaron's Sing-Along Stuffed Shells

There aren't a whole lot of talents that I feel like I am missing.

Maybe I should rephrase that in a way that makes me sound like less of an arrogant prick.

In general, I'm happy with the talents that I have, and don't often feel like I wish I could do the many, many things I'm bad at. It would be nice to be able to draw, no doubt, and I have to admit that skiing looks like something I might enjoy if I was able to do it more on those wooden plank-things they give you and less on, you know, my face.

There is one huge exception to this - I really, really wish that I could sing. I'm not even asking for rock-star level talent... not that I wouldn't take it, if offered. Is there any better job than Rock Star? (Okay, Hugh Hefner. That job is already filled, though.) I would settle for being able to play Rock Band with my friends and not being forced to relegate myself to Beastie Boys or other mostly atonal spoken-word songs. I would settle for being able to understand the connection between what's going on with my voice, and what's going on with the pitch arrow on the screen. (I find that stupid arrow incredibly frustrating - not because it's always telling me I'm failing the song, but because I honestly don't have the slightest clue what it wants me to do. I've tried just about everything I know how to do with my voice, and it doesn't seem to impact how I do at the game one bit.)

But my loss is your win, folks. Today was our anniversary, and one of the things Victoria got me was the DVD of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. If you haven't seen it... Who am I kidding? You've seen it. You're reading this, which means you and I have probably hung out. If you look at the Venn diagram of "people who are willing to hang out with Aaron" and "People who have seen Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog", I'm pretty sure that you'll find the first circle is entirely within the second.

So anyway, it's a terrific DVD - and one of the things about a 45-minute movie is that you can actually watch and enjoy the commentary tracks on them. There are two - one normal, and one called "Commentary: The Musical", which was more awesome in theory than in actual practice, but still fairly awesome. Great making-of stuff, a few fun (and fiendishly hard to get at) easter eggs.

I think you know where I'm going here, because you know I'm about as impressionable as warm silly putty.

My complete lack of any ability whatsoever to sing is the only thing that's saving you from having to listen to me singing this blog post. Maybe watch me dancing around in some sort of evil chef costume. OH MY GOD YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW MUCH I WISH I COULD SING RIGHT NOW.


Grump grump. I feel like I felt during my Hulk post - I mean, I made some stuffed shells, they were really yummy, I'm going to write about them. I'm good at writing! I enjoy writing! But I really, really want to be singing about them. Oh well. Picture me, walking sadly off camera, whistling Sweet Georgia Brown.


I like making stuffed shells. They occupy this odd headspace for me - my mental filing system at once tags them as "fancy" and "homey", two things which should be pretty much at odds with one another. They are kinda fancy - it's hard to argue that a tray of hand-stuffed pasta is anything but - and they're one of the dishes that I'll make for company when I want to serve something nice. At the same time, they're not so much trouble that I can't make them for a family dinner, and it's hard to argue that something which is pasta, cheese, and sauce is anything but comfort food. Plus, my mom made them when we were kids.

The fennel definitely works here. It really did its job, adding a nice zing to the shells without really overwhelming any of the other flavors. I was originally intending to scratch-make a fennel-heavy tomato sauce to go with it (and give me another blog post)  but honestly, I'm glad I didn't - the sauce is a compliment here, not a main element like it would be with, let's say, lasagna. Every time I make stuff shells, I keep meaning to cut back on the amount of sauce I use, but I never remember to - and adding a bunch of fennel straight to the sauce would bring it more into the forefront than I think would really work.

(I still might make sauce - I haven't done that in a long, long time and it's a lot of fun. We'll see if I have time for an all-day cooking project in the next day or so.) (PS I won't have time, so if you see a post where I do tomato sauce, call child services to come and take my neglected child away from me.)

Fennel Stuffed Shells

1 box jumbo stuffed shells1 handful shredded mozzerella
Most of a can of pasta sauce

Filling:
1 lb (about two cups) ricotta cheese
1/2 cup parmesan[1] cheese
4 cloves garlic
1-2 tablespoons ground fennel[2] (I cooked this with one, and I would have liked more.)
1/2 tablespoon basil
1 large egg
6 oz spinach
6 oz mushrooms

1 pinch kosher salt
Dried red pepper flakes to taste


You know how to make pasta, so I'm not going to bother with instructions for the shells. As with most pasta that's getting baked, you want it fairly al dente.

Meanwhile, chop the hell out of the spinach, mushrooms, and garlic. There's not much more to it; dump everything listed under "filling" in a big bowl and mix it together. You may want to beat the egg for a few seconds first, but it's not a big deal if you don't. In the end, you should have a fairly consistent, fairly smooth filling that fairly easily spoons out.

Put the oven on 350. Take out a large baking dish, and put a layer of tomato sauce in the bottom. Hopefully, you've timed this right and your pasta is just about cooked. I generally don't rinse pasta after cooking it, but this is an exception - I run the shells under cold water to cool them down, because we're about to handle them. Now, take the shells one at a time in the palm of your hand - so that the tips of the shell are pointed at your wrist and your fingertips. Gently squeeze the shell with your fingers, so that the edges of the shell (which are probably currently curled in) bow outwards, and the whole thing is wide open.

Damn it, I need to take more pictures. This is something which would be easy to show, but is hard to explain. Oh well, you're smart, you'll figure it out. Squeeze the shell in your hand until it opens up. Take a spoonful of the filling, load up the shell, put the shell in the sauce, and repeat with the next shell. Don't go crazy - it's better to slightly understuff the shells than overstuff them, both from the perspective of managing the amount of filling you have (can always add more later) and from a taste perspective. (I think too much ricotta does more harm than good in both shells and lasagna.)

When you are out of shells, or filling, or hopefully both (if you run out of dish, just go and get a second dish. Do I have to tell you everything?) give the whole thing a bit more tomato sauce on the top of the shells, then give it the mozzarella on top of the sauce. (You could probably dust with some more fennel at this point, too - wish I had thought of that.) Put some tin foil on the top, give it twenty minutes in the oven, take the foil off, give it ten more minutes. Give it ten or fifteen minutes to cook and set before serving; serve with garlic bread, red wine, and your fanciest bon mots. Under no circumstances, while serving these shells, inadvertently introduce your archnemesis to the girl of your dreams.



Tomorrow, I try to make pot pies. Tune in to see if I screw them up!


Actually, that should probably be "Tune in to see how badly I'm gonna screw them up."


[1]I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but in almost any case where I claim to be using parmesan, it's actually a parmesan/asiago/romano blend that Victoria and I get. It's really good.


[2]A quick addendum to my irritated "Why would you want to grind spices more or less finely" post the other day. There's an advantage to buying things in seed form, in that you only need to store the seeds and you can grind it whenever. But I bought not only fennel seeds, but some very finely ground fennel - almost a powder. Way finer than I can grind at home with the tools I currently have. And one thing I really like about it is that it is phenomenally easy to control; it's really, really easy to take a good-sized pinch and then put exactly as much as you want exactly where you want it.

Then again, Alton is always saying that control is one reason that he likes coarse Kosher salt. So, I probably have no idea what I'm talking about.

Oh, one last thing - keep in mind that the more finely ground your spice is, the more spice and the less air you're getting in the same volume.