Five Ingredient Stuffed Shells

Well, when designing recipes for stuffed shells, I kind of went overboard with my Chile Colorado-inspired chicken stuffed shells. For this recipe for stuffed shells, I wanted to do the opposite and see if I could produce a recipe for stuffed shells with as few ingredients as possible. Five seemed like a good number and, after seeing the results, I think it turned out pretty well!

By the way, we’re not counting water as an ingredient since it doesn’t make it into the final product. Plus, it’s my blog so I can cheat however I want!!

You will need:

• 1 box of stuffed shells
• Salt
• 2 bricks cream cheese
• 5 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 cups heavy cream

(See, that’s no so bad, is it?)

By the way, if I could have had six ingredients, I’d top the shells with some shredded mozzarella cheese. If I had seven ingredients, I would definitely want some white pepper in both the sauce and the cream cheese mix. And if I could have eight ingredients, some cooking spray to grease the baking dish, but I’m a man of my word.

1. Prepare the stuffed shells according to package directions. If the package directions, don’t specify boiling the shells in salty water, boil them in salty water!
2. While the stuffed shells are boiling, combine 1.5 boxes of cream cheese with 3 cloves of garlic.
3. Fill the shells with cream cheese when they are done cooking.
4. Also, in a sauce pan over medium heat, bring the cream to a simmer with the other two cloves of garlic.
5. When the sauce just starts to simmer, mix in the rest of the cream cheese to thicken the sauce slightly.
6. Preheat oven to 350.
7. Finally, pour about a third of the sauce into the baking dish. Layer the shells on top of the sauce.
8. Liberally coat the shells with the rest of the sauce and bake until warm.

Enjoy!

Chile Colorado-inspired chicken stuffed shells

As you’re perusing recipes for stuffed shells, you’re going to find some really great Italian-based recipes and those recipes for stuffed shells are fantastic. However, we believe that there is more one can do with the stuffed shell than the classic approach (not that we don’t love the classic Italian approach.) Still, sometimes we want variety and so we took the stuffed shell and took it South of the border to try something a little different.
This recipe for stuffed shells is completely inspired by our love of chili Colorado, which is beef stewed in a smoked chili sauce. In the Blog Well Done household, chili Colorado is our quicker, less ingredient intensive version of mole that we like just as well. Still, we thought beef might overwhelm the flavor of the shell, so we opted for chicken, but kept the chili sauce.
Does that sound like a recipe for stuffed shells you might like?

You will need:
• 2 cups chicken broth or water
• 2 onion, sliced
• 5 cloves garlic, halved
• Salt and pepper
• 2 boneless skinless chicken breasts
• Cooking spray
• 4 ancho chilies
• 4 guajillo chilies
• 1 can of chipotles in adobo sauce
• 1 tablespoon dried oregano, preferably dried Mexican oregano
• 1/2 cup tomato sauce
• 1 box of stuffed shells
• 1 package of cream cheese
• 3 cups of cheddar cheese

This recipe for stuffed shells suggests that you brine your chicken for an hour or up to a day. If you don’t have time for that, you can skip it and go right to cooking the chicken.

1. To prepare the brine, pour 2 cups of broth or water into a large bowl with a lid or a freezer bag. Add 1 onion, 3 cloves of garlic, 1/2 cup salt and pepper to taste. Put the chicken in the bowl and let it sit for as little as an hour or as much as 24 hours.
2. Preheat oven to 350.
3. Pat the chicken dry. Cover liberally with salt and pepper and place on a baking sheet covered in cooking spray.
4. Bake the chicken for 22 minutes.
5. While the chicken is cooking, bring a saucepan of water to boil.
6. Once boiling, kill the heat and add the dried chilies. Let them rehydrate for about 10 minutes.
7. Remove from the water and put the chilies in a food processor with the other onion, the rest of the garlic, 1 chipotle, 2 tablespoons of adobo and the oregano.
8. Blend until smooth. If the sauce is too thick, add a little water from the chilies.
9. Pour the sauce into a bowl.
10. Put the chicken into the food processor and use it to shred the chicken.
11. Finally, cook the shells according to package directions.
12. Preheat oven to 350.
13. While the shells are cooking, mix the cream cheese, one cup of cheddar cheese and chicken together.
14. Spray a baking dish with cooking spray, then fill the finished shells with the cream cheese mixture.
15. Place the shells on the baking dish, then pour in the sauce.
16. Finally, top with the rest of the cheese and bake until the cheese is melted.

Enjoy!

Cooking Italian sausage in the oven

If you’ve ever been to Jasper’s in Kansas City and had one of their grilled Italian sausage sandwiches, you may be asking yourself why anyone would want to cook Italian sausages in the oven. While there is something to flame kissing an Italian sausage, I kind of prefer cooking Italian sausages in the oven. For my money, cooking Italian sausages in the oven is faster, there’s less clean up than cooking Italian sausages on the grill, and they still taste delicious.
Of course, like with most things, there’s an art to cooking Italian sausage in the oven and a method that will get you better results every time. Of course, that method takes longer than just cooking the Italian sausages in the oven, so we’ll talk both methods.

Cooking Italian sausages in the oven

You will need:

• 8 Italian sausages
• Enough vegetable oil to cover the bottom of baking dish
• Salt and pepper to taste

Italian sausage method #1: Quick and tasty

1. Preheat your oven to 350.
2. Grease the bottom of a baking dish with the vegetable oil and arrange the sausages so that they don’t touch.
3. Use a sharp knife to cut small holes in the top only of the sausage.
4. Sprinkle with salt and liberally coat with black pepper
5. Bake until the sausage is cooked all the way through, about 12-15 minutes.

Note: In case you are wondering, normally you would want to pair Italian (olive) oil with Italian sausages, but I prefer vegetable oil in this case because it won’t burn.

Italian sausage method #2: More steps, but tasty

1. Preheat your oven to 450.
2. Grease the baking dish with a thin layer of vegetable oil.
3. Put the baking dish into the oven and let it get very hot for 10 minutes.
4. While the baking dish is charging, use a sharp knife to cut small holes in the top only of the sausages.
5. Sprinkle both sides with salt and liberally cover with black pepper.
6. After ten minutes, use an oven mitt or hot pan holder to open the oven and pull out the dish.
7. Arrange the Italian sausages cut side down and cook for one minute. This should give you similar browning to a grill.
8. Flip the sausages and reduce the heat to 350.
9. Cook for 12 minutes or until done all the way through.

Slap on a bun, toss into a sauce or eat as is. Whatever you do, enjoy!