Italian Stallion.

The next time that I make these, I'll be utilizing the man sitting on the couch watching the game. The end product was delicious, savory, and I would make these again in a heartbeat, with one alteration. Oh, did I mention these were low-fat? Also, can I please, please, please have the longest title award?

Faux-Ricotta "Cheesy Sea Shells" Stuffed Pasta Shells with a Hearty Meat Sauce
Meat Sauce
- 1 lb. super lean ground beef
- 1 Tbsp. soy sauce
- 3 cans diced tomatoes, drained
- 1 onion, diced
- 3 garlic cloves, minced
- salt
- basil
- tomato paste (optional)

Stuffed Shells
- 1 box (12 oz.) jumbo pasta shells
- 1 container (24 oz.) fat-free cottage cheese, drained if necessary*
- 1 1/2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
- 2 garlic cloves, or 1 tsp garlic powder
- roughly 1/4 c. milk *

Make sauce. Place tomatoes in food processor and pulse until smooth. Heat oil in large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add onion and cook until softened. Stir in ground beef, and work soy sauce into beef. Add tomato paste, garlic, and cook until fragrant (1 min). Stir in processed tomatoes and salt, simmer until slightly thickened (~20 min). 

Cook shells. Meanwhile, in a large pot, boil 4 quarts of water. Add 1 Tbsp. salt and pasta shells, cook until al dente (12-15 min). Drain shells, transfer to a baking sheet, making sure to separate shells from one another gently.

Make Filling. Place cottage cheese, mozzarella, garlic (or garlic powder), and milk into food processor. Blend until relatively smooth, then transfer to a large plastic bag. Cut one corner of bag, then fill each usable** shell with cheese mixture****. 

Assemble. Spread a thin layer of meat sauce on bottom of baking dish. Arranged filled shells (seam side up) over sauce. Spread any remaining sauce over shells***, along with any remaining mozzarella that you didn't fancy munching on. Cover with foil, bake until bubbling around edges (~18 min). Let cool, then serve.

* I drained my cottage cheese thoroughly. But when I started to blend it with the mozzarella cheese, the lack of liquid made it difficult to get anything blended. First, I added sour cream, but then I realized it would need a little bit of milk to really get anything done in that blender. Moral of the story, if your cottage cheese is swimming in water, drain it. If not, don't worry about it.

** These shells need to be drained and separated as soon as humanly possible. As I separated the shells and placed them on the baking sheet, I ran them through a little of lukewarm water. This made sure that the shell's outer layer didn't stick to the inner layer, which helped with I was filling them. Even though I was very careful with the shells, there were a couple that just ripped, and were essentially unusable. It's like dying eggs at Easter - somebody's gonna drop an egg, so accept it and keep on trucking.

*** I am a skeptic and only used two cans of diced tomatoes instead of the recommended three. At the end, I only had enough meat sauce to cover the bottoms of the two dishes I used to bake the filled shells. Next time, I'm definitely using three cans. Oh, and if you decide not to drain them, just be forewarned that you will have water bubbling up in the finished product. Tomatoes are like a Sham-Wow.

**** I had a bunch of cheese mixture left over. Probably enough for five or six shells (which, coincidentally, is the number of shells that didn't make the cut). I have no idea what you should do with the leftover cheese stuff.

All in all, really freaking good. The only part where I got tripped up was during the filling process, because you need to have a steady and gentle hand. Next time, I'm splitting the cheese mixture between two bags, and getting H. to help me out.

Goodnight, people!