My first kind are, obviously, sea shells, a vast amount of which the BF and I have accumulated during trips to GORGEOUS Clearwater Beach and have stashed all over the apartment. They make a nice decoration, and it's really the only Florida-related thing in the apartment . . . aside from the BF's recent love of palms and succulents (those are plants, peeps) which make the apartment sort of tropical, as well.
ANYWAY. Onto the other shells! Stuffed shells! I whipped these up last week for a quick and easy dinner, mostly because I wasn't sure what I was going to make and I had the ingredients for this just laying around. I browned 3/4 of a pound of ground beef, some red onion, and some mushrooms over medium high heat, with a little italian seasoning, red pepper, and garlic. While that was happening, I threw a 28 oz. can of tomatoes into the food processor with some onion, green pepper, and a whole bunch of Italian-y spices to make an "Italian salsa."
I refer to this as Italian salsa because it's much chunkier than your average marinara, as well as much more delicious. I boiled up some large shells and let them cool, then stuffed them with my beef and mushroom mixture and set them in a small dish atop some of the "salsa"
I drenched these guys with the salsa, threw on a little mozzarella cheese, and popped the dish in the oven at 350 for about 20 minutes.
The BF and I enjoyed our shells (me a little more than him, since my plan of hiding the mushrooms wasn't as covert as I'd hoped and he totally noticed them and was less-than-thrilled) with some garlic bread that I whipped up with some Italian bread I had made in my bread machine!
I have decided, recently, that I want a pair of pseudo-cowboy boots so I can wear them and fondly reminisce about how, as a teeny-bopper, I attended a Martina McBride concert and went to the rodeo.
Jeffrey Campbell via Solestruck.
These certainly fit the bill. Yee-haw!
Tell the BF to suck it up and eat the mushrooms :)
ReplyDeleteimpressive, as usual
ReplyDeleteYou just whipped this up huh! When I become really rich and am looking for a chef I'm so going to hire you, haha.
ReplyDeleteLook's delicious - I'll have to give this a try!
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