Wednesday, November 10, 2010

My (second) Favorite Kind of Shells

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!

4 comments:

  1. Tell the BF to suck it up and eat the mushrooms :)

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  2. You just whipped this up huh! When I become really rich and am looking for a chef I'm so going to hire you, haha.

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  3. Look's delicious - I'll have to give this a try!

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