Remember dinners when we were little?

A few weeks ago, I was tired of my nightly dinner being a combination of washed spinach and scallions and soup and crackers and cheese and salty salty lovely chips or whatever I tend to do nightly...a piecemeal dinner--which has its advantages...like it can be stretched out as long as a five course meal, which is sort of nice when it's a two-hour tv night and you want to have dinner while watching television. ...but which also has the disadvantage of not feeling really meal-like, even though it's plenty. I usually dont miss that. But a few weeks ago I felt like, man, I should make a real dinner.... I thought about when I was in school, and the dinners that we'd have, and how completle they were, how they all required preparation...which is kind of impressive (because my parents never made it look like their nights were consumed with meal-preparation) .

So, I tried thinking of a real dinner.... one that wouldn't require too much special equipment though, because I don't have much equipment...and one that doesn't require too many picky ingredients, because I didn't want to spend too much money. Basic childhood-fare...but acceptable for grownup-dinner.

What would a real dinner be? If I could have any dinner, what would it be?
Strangely, my mind landed on stuffed shells.
That seemed perfect! and real!
First I emailed my mom to ask her to email me the recipe she used...
She emailed back to say she didn't have one.
liar.
Thank goodness I remembered I had a cookbook sitting right here in my cabinet, with every recipe imaginable!


The recipe is actually two recipes!
page 339 Baked Manicotti or Jumbo Shells [note: I hate both of those names.][manicotti is a gross word.]["stuffed shells" isn't much better, but I've grown accustomed to it.]
points you to
page 337 Cheese Filling


Notes:

1. I made half of each recipe. and it was perfect. and still was enough for three dinners.
2. It seems at first like having to do two recipes for one dinner would be a pain--but it's not...It's remarkably seamless and smooth. ...You cook the shells, and mix the cheese filling, and put the filling in the shells and put the shells in the pan, and put pan in the oven. the end.
3. the cheese part is fun and fast to make! I hate thinking about ricotta cheese--but I don't mind it, if I'm not thinking about it. ...mixing it in with things makes it hard not to think about--but acutally, it's kind of fun to work with. Do not let a fear or contempt for Ricotta cheese put you off this meal.
4. the shells--you hardly have to cook them--this is fun too! The trick is that you want them cooked enough that they're a little bit bigger and quite a bit pliable.
5. stuffing shells was the most fun, and laying them all in the pan. like little babies. little babies that you're about to bake.
6. the most expensive/picky ingredient: parsley...only because you use about a pinch of it, and then it will wilt in your refrigerator. but it's worth it. because it makes it pretty. and a little less blood-bathy looking
7. I added two fistfuls of frozen spinach to the cheese filling--to supercharge it! (and again, to make it less bloody looking)...P+C, you will, understandably, want to skip this, because you hate green I think.
8. the book says to cover with foil. I didn't. Because I like the top brown and crunchy in parts.

Guess what! Stuffed shells are remarkably simple! I love them.

I've made this once more since then.

I highly recommend this for P+C!--this strikes me as a very P+C thing to make.