My Meatless Mondays and a Surprise Stuffed Shells Recipe

For Meatless Mondays, or in this case, Meatless Sundays, I made a different kind of stuffed shells.  I filled the shells with the cheese mixed with sauteed mushrooms, onions and zucchini.  Covered it with tomato sauce and then grated cheese.  It was delicious and the vegetables tasted like a hidden surprise and for my hubby, it truly was a pleasant surprise.

Ingredients:

1 box large shells for stuffing  (gluten free)

16 ounces ricotta (I did not have any and subbed cottage cheese.)

1 tablespoon olive or canola oil

1 large onion, sauteed

3 generous sized mushrooms, chopped and sauteed

1/2 large zucchini, sliced and sauteed

1 teaspoon Italian seasoning

1/2 block of 16 ounce Mozzarella both sliced and grated  (much more grated than sliced)

3/4 cup Parmesan

1 cup bottled Marinara sauce

Method:

Cook shells according to package directions.  (I used gluten free.)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

While shells are cooking, saute onions, mushrooms and zucchini in 1 tablespoon of oil.  I was going to caramelize the onions but I did not have enough time to pull if off so I added the mushrooms and zucchini.

Mix ricotta cheese with Italian seasoning.

Pour a little tomato sauce to lightly cover bottom of baking pan.  I did not use all the shells so I used a 9 inch round baking pan.  If I had used more, I would have gone with a rectangular one.  With the round, I had two levels.

Line up your shells to cover the bottom.

Mix the 1/3 of the vegetables and 1/3 of Parmesan with the ricotta cheese and put some  in each shell.  Top with more vegetables.  Top with sauce and then the mozzarella and parmesan cheese.

Do the same with more shells, building on top.  The final layer is the two cheeses.

The vegetables really make a difference.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.  Top should brown slightly.

Eat and enjoy.