Tuesday happenings and a yummy stuffed shells with broccoli

The other day I made one of our favorite dinners,  Stuffed shells with Broccoli.    Sooooo good.
When Paul and I were first married,  I was 18 and didn't have my drivers license and many of the grocery shopping trips were done together.  Once we bought some frozen Stouffers stuffed shells and we loved them.  It was the first time in 18 years that I had ever eaten cooked broccoli.  I'm sure part of their appeal was the fact that I didn't cook them  ~  I was not the greatest cook back them!

Anyway,  we liked them so much that the next shopping trip we bought the ingredients to try to make our own stuffed shells.  It's been a family favorite ever since.

1 box of large shells
1 bag of chopped frozen broccoli
1 can of diced or stewed tomatoes
1 jar of pasta sauce
1.5 cups of Ricotta cheese
1/2 cup of parmesan cheese
1 cup of mozzarella cheese

Besides getting your hands messy stuffing the shells,  this recipe is very simple.  And like everything I make,  you can give or take to the ingredients .  add more broccoli or less cheese ~ whatever.  It's still gonna taste good!

Boil shells as directed.  let cool.  I normally let mine cool by filling ( and refilling) the pot with cold water and letting them sit in it.  That way they don't stick.

While shell's are boiling,  cook broccoli until soft, drain and let cool.

Mix cooked broccoli with 1 can of drained tomatoes.

Add ricotta and parmesan cheese.  gently toss together.  Add any seasonings that you'd like,  I use salt, pepper and a little garlic.

Drop about a spoonful of mixture inside of the shells and line them up in a casserole dish.  I don't grease my dish,  but you can .

Pour on Pasta sauce

Top with mozzarella,  Cover and Bake @350 for about an hour.

And yummo. 

It's time to EAT!

As you can probably tell by all of the time I wasted by adding cute little green monsters to these recipe photos...  I'm still sitting home waiting for my jeep to be fixed.  Arrrrrrrrrh!!   We're hoping that we will get it back on Wednesday. 

To get myself out of this house today,  I think I will take a wagon up to the local nursery and load up on the pumpkins!   I think Paul is going to install the canvas awning today ~ super excited about that.   The new door already looks amazing. 

Hopefully the next blog post will be some before and afters!!!

Have a great day everyone!