Sausage and 3-Cheese Stuffed Shells {One for Tonight and One for the Freezer}

I have 3 kiddos in my house, and they are not the most adventurous of eaters. I can however sneak just about any red sauced pasta dish onto their dinner plate and just call it "pasta" and they don't ask questions. Because of this, we have some version of "pasta' at least weekly (that and some version of "tacos"- which can be burritos, enchiladas...). Me and my husband get tired of having spaghetti all the time, so I try and change it up with a dish that I know we will both love, but that's also simple enough in flavor that the kids will also gobble up.

You can certainly use Italian sausage in this dish, but the breakfast sausage gives it a less spicy flavor for our tastes. If using Italian sausage, you can eliminate the Italian seasoning. Even though there are 5 in our family, we would never eat all this recipe makes (and it's too hard to half the sausage and beef packs) so I always make one for the freezer. This is also a great meal to take to someone who just had a baby.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup diced onion
• 1tsp. Minced garlic
• 1 lb. breakfast sausage
• 1 lb. ground beef
• 15 oz. ricotta cheese
• 1/2 cup shredded Parmesan
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 tsp. Italian seasoning
• 1/2 tsp. salt and pepper
• 1 cup shredded mozzarella, divided by 1/4 cup for the cheese mixture, and 1/4 cup for top of each dish
• 1 egg, beaten
• 2 jars marinara sauce
• 1 box jumbo shells
• Fresh chopped basil (optional)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Cook onions and garlic in some butter in large skillet. Add sausage and ground beef and brown. Cook shells according to package directions. Remove from heat. In a bowl, mix the ricotta, Parmesan, mozzarella, spices and egg. Add to sausage mixture and combine.

Grease a large baking dish for tonight, and another oven proof dish that has a tight fitting lid for your freezer. Pour a thin layer of sauce on bottom of each pan. Drain shells and stuff sausage mixture inside each shell (a heavy tablespoon full). Arrange shells in single layer in both baking dishes. Cover with remaining sauce. Top with mozzarella cheese and basil. Bake the one for tonight for 40 minutes. Stick the other in the freezer. When ready to eat, bake it at 350 for 1.5 to 2 hours. You can also set this out in the fridge a few days before you plan on cooking it and you can reduce the cooking time in half.

I'd also like to note, that if you have leftover meat/cheese mixture after stuffing all of your shells, you can freeze just this mixture to use in the future. It is great to use in our Spaghetti Lasagna recipe!

Tonight I'm serving with a Simple Italian Side Salad.

This recipe was featured on our 30 Days of Dinners June Menu, Make sure to check out all of the other great recipes on that month's menu!

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Weeknight Crispy Chicken Pasta & Strawberry Orange Spinach Salad

I've been debating for a while on what to call this. I got my inspiration from Chicken Parmesan, but needed something that I could cook in a much shorter amount of time.  I almost called it Chicken Parmesan casserole, but figured the name would turn my kids off to it. For this dish I used precooked frozen chicken tenders to make it a quick weeknight meal. The key to making this dish cook so quickly is "pre-cooking" the meat. It's going to sound like a ridiculous process, but trust me it gets done a lot faster this way:)

Ingredients:
10 oz. of uncooked rotini or penne pasta (I use the veggie kind to hide some nutrition)
1 Tbsp. Butter
1/4 cup diced onion
1 clove minced garlic
4 frozen chicken tenders (the kind you get precooked in a bag)
1 jar spaghetti or marinar sauce
1/2 cup shredded mozzarella
1/4 cup shredded parmesan

Start off by getting your pasta water boiling. Then chop up your onions and heat up the butter in a skillet on medium and cook the onions until they are translucent and some start to turn brown. Meanwhile add your pasta to or of water once it starts to boil.

Now for the chicken...to get the chicken to cook fast, place it on a microwave safe place and cook for 1.5 minutes. These speeds up the cooking time by a lot! Then place in oven at 400 for about 7 minutes to get it crispy. We don't want to wait to cook this in the oven with the whole meal put together because again, it will take too long. Using the microwave and stovetop will allow us to just be able to broil the finished meal for 3 minutes. You're really just using the time it takes to boil the pasta to heat the chicken quickly. Now you can add the garlic to your onions and cook about 3 minutes then turn to low.

About the time is your pasta is done, you're chicken can come out of the oven. Leave the oven on so it stays hot for the finished product. Slice the chicken tenders and add them to the skillet with the onions and garlic.

Turn back up to medium high and cook the chicken for 3-4 minutes to get even crispier. While it looks like a lot, this whole process up to now should only have taken 10-15 minutes.  Reduce the heat on the skillet to medium. Add your sauce to the skillet, again just long enough to heat it thoroughly.

Drain your pasta and mix the sauce and chicken mix to the pasta in a large bowl and toss around to coat the pasta in the sauce. Add about half of the mozzarella and Parmesan to the bowl and stir. Pour into a 2 quart oven safe dish, top with the remaining cheese and stick in the oven. Turn your oven to broil and cook just until the cheese starts to brown.

For the salad, I really can't even call this a recipe. While I do love to make my own salad dressings and such, I'm trying to throw this entire meal together in about 20 minutes, so I'm using  jarred dressing and canned fruit!

Strawberry Orange Spinach Salad (just use the desired amount of each for the number of people eating the salad):
Baby spinach
Mandarin oranges (the canned kind)
Pine nuts
Gorgonzola or mozzarella cheese
Strawberry vinaigrette (could also use a raspberry dressing and change the name to Raspberry Orange Spinach Salad)

Mix all the ingredients in a bowl and toss just before serving. Enjoy!