So last night I decided to make a Giada De Laurentiis recipe Stuffed Shells with Arrabbita Sauce. Since I am a vegetarian (well to be technical I am a pescatarian) I decided to leave out the pancetta from the ricotta mixture–I was worried that the ricotta mix would be bland so I decided to use spinach instead. I remembered a Lasagna Rolls recipe (also by Giada) that I made a couple of months back had spinach and ricotta in it so I referenced that recipe. The Lasagna Rolls recipe also had a cream sauce on the bottom of the pan–since I am of the opinion that cream sauce can only make any dish better I decided to include the creme sauce. I put the creme sauce on the bottom of the pan, stuffed the shells, covered the shells with tomato-basil sauce (Whole Foods Brand) and the smothered everything with cheese. It didn’t look like enough cheese so then I added more.
While the dish was in the oven, we started with Brie and Baguette and had some wine and waited for the yummy ridiculously high calorie dish to come out of the oven. It was SOOOO GOOD! The recipe Mash-Up was awesome!!!
For the wine, while I was shopping at Whole Foods I visited the wine section where they were having a wine tasting. The Whole Foods on Ponce is so strange. Last Saturday I went in and they had a DJ spinning in the wine section–well between the wine and cheese sections. It was bizarre–I mean I have never seen a DJ at work in a grocery store before. Anyhoo, I went to the wine section and I saw a man with a table set up and 5 bottles of wine on it. I went over and he asked which wine I would like to try–I must have given him the saddest look ever because he proceeded to pour me a sample of each–SCORE!!!! I tried them all and decided on the Alta Cima Cabernet Sauvignon–a Chilean wine. I figured it would go well with the pasta and I was right.
This is the first time I’ve deviated so much from a recipe, and I’m glad I did. My Giada inspired Mash-up was great!
