Avocado Stuffed Shells

Years ago when I was going through and copying recipes from my mom's collection I happened upon a recipe for Avocado-stuffed Shells. To be honest there was a part of me that always thought this sounded a bit weird. I associate avocado with Mexican food and served cold, not Italian food served warm. So, I avoided this recipe in my card file. Although I did take the time to write it down so I thought I should try it.  I believe this was a recipe that hails back to my grandmother, but I am not 100% sure. If it does she was a head of her time living in Wisconsin mixing avocados in with Italian food. I wish she would have lived longer because she loved to cook and even could have been considered a gourmet. But, I smile knowing that even if she did not live long enough to teach me how to cook and give me advise, I know I inherited her love of cooking and she is looking down from heaven hopefully smiling! If I ever do find out the whole story I will be sure to share along with my recipe tweaks!

What I Needed:

Shredded Mozzarella

Ricotta Cheese
Avocados
basil and oregano
Large Pasta Shells
Basic Marinara Sauce
(see Recipe below for exact amounts)


What I Did:

Boil water in a large pot with a little oil in it. Cook 20 (plus a few extra) of the shells for 2 minutes under the al dente cook time. You really don't want to over cook the shells. They will be impossible to fill without loosing structural integrity. When you bake this dish you the noodles will continue to soften a bit so you won't be crunching into dry pasta shells.

Drain the water and rinse the shells in a colander with cold water and let them sit to cool down a bit. Best not to handle these straight out of boiling water unless you want burned finger tips!

While the noodles are cooking/cooling mix up the cheeses, avocado and herbs. Then when the shells are significantly cooled fill each one with a spoonful of the cheese/avocado mixture.

Stuffed Shells!

In for the close up! See the bits of avocado....mmmmmm!

Once all the shells are stuff cover with a Basic Marinara sauce

This should look familiar! (If not see previous post)

All smothered!

Bake for a while uncovered and un-cheesed. The last 15 minutes top with shredded mozzarella and continue baking.

The last 5 minutes turn the boiler on low and toast the top. Please don't wander away during this step. It is only 5 minutes and broilers left unattended like to burn food to a crisp!

Resting for it gets served

And in for the close up!

Gorgeous!

We paired this dish with some asparagus. But a nice green salad or some other greenery would be equally good!

Happy Eating!

~ Recipe ~

1 cup grated mozzarella cheese (low moisture - don't go breaking out the Buffalo!)
1/2 lbs (8 oz) Ricotta cheese
2 ripe medium Hass/Fuerte avocados (just not the West Indian Varietals! aka Florida Avocados) - diced
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp white ground pepper
2 tsp dried oregano
2 tsp dried basil
20 Large pasta Shells (Conchiglie)

Basic Marina
Grated Mozzarella for on top
9" x 13" pan

Combine cheeses, avocado, salt, pepper, oregano and basil in a boil. Cook shells in a large pot of boiling water with a touch of oil until just starting to soften*. Drain and rinse the shells with cold water. Handling carefully, fill each shell with a spoonful of the cheese and avocado mixture. Arranging them in the 9"x13" pan. Cover the shells with Basic Marinara Sauce. Bake in a pre-heated 350 F oven for 25 minutes. Top with shredded mozzarella and bake for another 10 minutes. To brown the cheese on top, broil on low for NO more than 5 minutes (best to just keep an eye on the oven for this time!). Let the dish rest for 5 minutes before serving!

*Best to go a minute or two under the cooking time because you will be baking this dish and it is hard to fill the shells without ripping them!

Avocado Festival Part 2!

Last Sunday ESFSW and I plus some good friends headed to Fallbrook for the Avocado Festival! I could summarize the experience as: Where are the avocados? We had a great time but had it not been billed as an Avocado festival we wouldn't have known. It really felt like a really large vendor fair. We had a good time and enjoyed the food we did get and commented on how we could have made everything more avocado-y.

We had a good time with our friends and did find some really good food:

Free little taco sampler from a local taco shop! It was actually quite tasty!

Guacamole and chips! We just wish we had been more or that we could have found the guacamole contest

Double D BBQ! The smoked their meat in the locomotive engine.

Tri-tip sandwich with coleslaw and baked beans - everything was really good!

Avocado tamale!

Avocado with seafood!

Avocado ice cream from Cold Stone. It was surprisingly really really good!

We did a little olive oil/ vinegar tasting at one of the many vendor stands (Pastamore)

Our one purchase (beside what we ate of course!) - Saffron Fettuccine

Recycled Avocado Tree

 The Fallbrook Chamber of Commerce claims that 70,000 people attend the annual Avocado Festival and after being there I believe it!

We had a great time despite leaving wanting more avocados, although thanks to ESFSW's grandparents we went home with bags full of Fuerte Avocados and Mandarin Oranges from their trees. They also kindly allowed us to park at their house to avoid the craziness.

Overall it was nice day out with friends!

Avocado Festival!

Avocados!

I just wanted to put up a little notice about an event happening in the greater Sunshineville area this weekend. That event would be the Fallbrook Avocado Festival. I have never been before but ESFSW has and he was very sad that he missed it last year. We were sitting after playing a little tennis this evening and remember that it should be coming up soon so had me look for it on the interwebs. And low and behold it is a good thing he did because it is this Sunday! (April 15th!). 

It looks like a cool event so if you are in town and like avocados you should check it out!

There is info on the Fallbrook Chamber of commerce site: Fallbrook Website

Including (click links below):

maps and parking info

avocado merchandise

entertainment

You can also check out the full program of events at this site, which gives a summary of all the info needed.

ESFSW will probably check it out. So if you can't make it be sure to look for my post about the event!

Fallbrook - North of San Diego

Just to tempt you one more time!

Omelette Night 2

Time for omelettes again! 

There was a little hiccup in ESFSW and my communication over who was actually going to be cooking the omelettes. In the end he ended up doing the omelette making although I put the salads together and cooked the sausage. It wasn't until after I had started cooking the sausage that I realized I could have made sausage patties to have with the omelettes....que sera sera!

The photos for this post were taken by myself using a tablet, so they aren't the best. In time we will work out the kinks and I will have my actual camera back.

Here's what we used:

4 Eggs (two each omelette)

Sausage (uncased, spicy breakfast sausage)

1 Avocado

Shredded cheddar cheese
salt
white pepper

Salad: Spinach, Tomatoes and Radish

Here is what we did:


Brown sausage in a small fry pan/omelette pan with a little olive oil.

Browned sausage - set aside on paper towel to soak up extra oil.

Mean while whisk four eggs together with a small amount of milk/half and half with a dash of salt and white pepper. Make sure the eggs are beaten well!

It is best if you are making multiple omelettes to have multiple pans so that who ever is enjoying the omelettes can enjoy them together! Using one pan that the sausage was browned in dump out any pooling oil. It can be poured into a second pan. Heat both the pans over medium high heat until water droplets sizzles when splashed in the pan. Pour half the egg into each pan and let the egg cook. Adjust heat as needed so that the egg cooks evenly. Using a soft spatula you can gentle nudge the egg around the pan so that the bottom and edges set well.

Once the egg is starting to set up you can add the omelette fillings that you want. We chose sausage, avocado (cubed) and cheddar cheese (grated).

Cheddar and Avocado! One of my favorite combinations!

Add fillings trying to keep it on one side of the egg

The tricky part is folding the omelette in half. This works best not to do it too soon. I've always used a hard spatula but ESFSW uses a soft one which makes turn delicate egg easier without it tearing.

Folding the omelette in half.

After the egg has been folded over let it cook a little bit more. If you have an electric range you could probably turn the burners off at this point since they remain hot. If you are lucky enough to have a gas range just turn the heat down to the lowest.

Spinach and Green Leaf Lettuce

In the mean time, prep the salad that you will serve with the omelettes and toast any bread that you decided to serve with the omelettes. I used spinach and green leaf lettuce and then added some radish and tomatoes.

ESFSW's Omelette!

ESFSW definitely pulled through despite having to deal with a different stove, different pans, a small kitchen and trying to work around another person cooking! He made wonderful omelettes despite him not be in his element! I can't wait to taste his future cooking endeavors!

Happy Eating!