Increasingly-Popular Mexican Stuffed Shells

Mexican Stuffed Shells are featured so often on Pinterest that I have no idea who originated this delicious recipe. One special change I made was to substitute Boca Veggie Ground Crumbles for my vegetarian daughter. This entree would be equally delicious with ground beef or ground turkey.

My son-in-law is a diehard carnivore but even he went back for seconds! Grandson No. 1 -- age 10 -- is an omnivore, as he puts it. We’ve recently come to realize that my 6-year old grandson is (going to be) a vegetarian. He barely touches meat and he likes most of his foods uncooked. I’m glad to know that both of them -- all 4 of them as a matter of fact -- love their salads and vegetables.

Grandma -- that’s me -- will eat most anything. That’s the way I was raised, but I find as I get older (I do that regularly) I prefer less meat and more veggies. Right now my daughter and I are in the midst of a modified Paleo diet. Meaning we’re pretty much restricting ourselves to meat, veggies and fruit. Because she’s a vegetarian, she ends up adding beans and some grains to her diet to meet her caloric and nutritional needs. I add some dairy because I never ate/drank much of it in the first place, but probably need what I can get to avoid osteoporosis.


Back to the recipe

MEXICAN STUFFED SHELLS
(Serves 5-6)

Ingredients...

1-pound ground beef or ground turkey
1 package taco seasoning
4 ounces cream cheese
18 jumbo pasta shells
1-1/2 cups salsa
1 cup taco sauce
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese
3 green onions, chopped
1/4 - 1/3 cup pitted black olives, cut in quarters
Sour cream

Instructions...

1. Preheat oven to 350-degrees Fahrenheit.
2. In a pan, brown the meat; add taco seasoning and prepare according to package directions.
3. Add cream cheese to meat mixture; cover and simmer until cheese is melted. Stir together and mix well. Cool thoroughly.
4. While meat is cooking, cook pasta according to package directions. Drain. Rinse with cold water. Drain. Set shells on pan or large plate with space between so they don’t stick together.
5. Pour salsa on bottom of a baking pan.
6. Stuff each shell with 1 - 2 tablespoons of the meat mixture. Place them in the pan, open side up.
7. Evenly cover shells with taco sauce.
8. Cover with foil and bake thirty (30”) minutes.
9. Remove foil and sprinkle with onions, olives and shredded cheeses.
10. Bake 10” - 15” more (leave foil OFF), until cheeses melt and mixture is just starting to bubble.
11. Serve with sour cream. If desired, serve with more chopped onions, shredded lettuce and diced tomatoes. Oh, and maybe more salsa!

NOTES:

* Since I was feeding carnivores (meat-eaters) and vegetarians, I substituted Boca Frozen Veggie Ground Crumbles (prepared as directed on package) and everyone was satisfied.
* My daughter had made an ATK (America’s Test Kitchen) recipe the day before and gave me her homemade taco seasoning from that entree. I used it and was happy with the results.
* I used mild salsa and mild taco sauce. Next time I may up the heat a notch in one or the other.
* Recipes I saw called for a 9-inch by 13-inch pan. No! Go smaller so that the finished, stuffed shells touch each other.
* I prefer full-fat cream cheese and sour cream!


Can you believe, next month -- September 2013 -- will be the two year anniversary of Step by Step in the Kitchen. And, I’ll be having my 68th birthday. Love it! You’re never too old for anything... blogging, whatever.

Maybe my creeping-up advanced age is what accounts for the fact that I only got one picture of these marvelous Mexican Stuffed Shells. Or, maybe it was the expected dinner company that threw me off.

So, the pictures are from the next day when I was having leftovers. I duplicated the one and cropped it this way and that, so now there are three views of the same photo! Sorry there’s not more, but check online and like I said, you’ll find lots of versions of this recipe and many great pics.

Last but not least, I hope you'll take a few minutes to visit my other blog, CORNING NY STEP BY STEP -- a view of the city where I live.

CORNING NY STEP BY STEP is now on Facebook. LIKE it and you’ll see when I post a new entry to that blog, plus there will be extra photos of people, places and things of Corning, New York that didn’t make it into the blog itself.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Birthday Cake And A Look At Past Cakes

Happy 10th birthday to my grandson Damian. Each year he and his younger brother tell me what kind of birthday cake they want. This year Damian asked for a giant cookie!

I have to admit to cheating. I bought a Betty Crocker 17.5 oz. Chocolate Chip Cookie mix and substituted 1/3 cup oil and 2 T. vegetable oil for the butter, which made for much easier spreading in the 12” diameter pan. First I tried spreading with a large spoon, then with a regular tablespoon. Finally I settled on the barehanded spread.



My goodness, the amount of chocolate chips Betty Crocker puts in her cookie mix! With approximately ten friends, quite a few family members and others... I decided to make two cookie cakes and lots of extra cookies.


My oven is small so I baked one giant cookies at a time. The disposable pans are rather flimsy, so I slipped a pizza pan underneath for support. I figured that would work okay since it had holes in it and would do a good job of distributing the oven heat












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Taking a look back through the years at Damian's birthday cakes from Grandma, I found these.

2009...
On the occasion of Damian’s 6th birthday, a huge family group assembled and I baked four pan cakes. Damian wanted to do his own decorating, including one cake minus the icing.





2010...
Damian wanted a motorcross bike cake like this:


It was a crazy cake! I baked and cut up and assembled the main cake, then Damian and his uncle frosted and decorated. They had a great time and Damian was so happy with his cake. Kids are easy to please because they don’t expect perfection.





2011...


For his 8th birthday, he wanted a dinosaur. I handed him the small whiteboard I kept on the counter and asked him to draw what he wanted. That year I made a cake with a one-dimensional T-Rex. I don’t have a decent photo and it looked to me a big mess, but he was thrilled. He recognized the red dripping out of T-Rex’s mouth as blood and he spotted the little volcanos around the sides of the cake.



2012...
No cake from Grandma. I was either sick or out of town. Mom and Dad got him his usual immediate-family cake and there was a big party later in the month in the back yard.


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TV TRAY
As a single person, I sometimes (often?) take my meal to the living room and eat off a TV tray while watching a movie or documentary. TV tray meals are usually cobbled-together with whatever happens to be in the kitchen, no measurements recorded.

Salmon fillet, coated with a mixture of fine bread crumbs, S&P and dried dill, pan seared in oil and butter. Fresh lemon juice squeezed on top during cooking and lemon pieces added to the pan. Knorr Pasta Side. Steamed carrots.

29th Birthday Treat For My Son-In-Law

My son-in-law is not a big fan of cakes or of chocolate or, for that matter, of any sweets. For the past ten years, I’ve made birthday treats for my grandsons (one 6 and the other about to turn 10) and for my daughter (more than 10 years!) , but never anything for my son-in-law.

This year was the turning point. I was on a fondant roll and came across a great idea that would fit him. If, I asked my daughter, he was to eat a cake, what kind would it be?

Pineapple Upside Down Cake, she said, he had recently had a piece of it and really liked it. So, I decided to see what I could come up with in the cupcake department with a pineapple taste.




The results was these amazing Crushed Pineapple Cupcakes from a blog called Life Made Simple. They are topped with a Pineapple Buttercream Icing.

I made one change when the heavy cream I bought went sour, so I subbed what I had: 1 tsp. low-fat milk.

I also made one addition--a surprise bite of one maraschino cherry in the middle of each cupcake.

As far as I’m concerned, Crushed Pineapple Cupcakes with Pineapple Buttercream Icing are winners and have a permanent place in my recipe collection.

Don't go away yet. Remember I mentioned fondant? My daughter and son-in-law are redoing a bedroom, tearing things out right down to the lathe and plaster, plus replacing framing around a window and putting up new sheetrock. So that means lots of tools, particularly hammers and nails.




I found what I was looking for on a blog called the Frosted Cake and Cookies which looks like it’s no longer maintained, but this June 2009 entry is still there for our use.

My advise for coloring the fondant and shaping the hammer and nails is to take your time and be willing to make mistakes and start over. It’s well worth the time and energy to produce these little gems.




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PEANUT BUTTER CUP BROWNIES
I made these little treasures again recently for a fundraising dinner. So rich and tasty. Easy to make.


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SOUTH AFRICAN BOBOTIE
I made it. I ate it. I loved it! Thanks to Bam’s Kitchen.

Happy 6th Birthday Cake!

My youngest grandson will be 6 on Tuesday, but there’s a party tomorrow! Devon, plus seven friends, plus his big brother and his friend, plus Mom, Dad and possibly other parents. You know how it goes.

I’m lucky ‘cause I get to make the cakes each year for the boys. One of the cakes, that is. Mom provides a small cake for the four of them to celebrate. Then there are individual cakes for a party each with their friends. Then one more cake--a bigger one, for a celebration of both birthdays with extended family. I’ll bet you’ve done that, too!

After ten years of birthday cakes and crazy themes, I headed them off at the pass this year. Devon, I asked, what kind of cake do you want? Marbled white and chocolate. That’s easy enough. What colors do you like, Devon? Red, not too dark. Green and blue. Okay, now to combine that with my idea of a “6” for his sixth birthday.




I’m not going to supply any cake recipe, nor will I give you my favorite icing recipe. Simply use a cake recipe you like. The same goes for the icing. It doesn’t matter.
Don’t bother worrying too much about how to make the number look perfect (I did!). When you frost the cake, you’ll cover all the problem areas and the finished cake will look wonderful.




The cake is topped with red, green and blue chocolate pieces and curls. I got the idea from my blogger friend Sibella, at Baking With Sibella, who used them on her beautiful Valentine’s cake. She, in turn, told of finding the idea at one of my new favorite blogs, The Pioneer Woman.




This last picture isn’t quite true to color, but I wanted to include it to show you the black squiggles I added at the last minute. And here’s why... I went shopping with Devon’s mom, my daughter, yesterday to pick up last minute items for the party. She’s sometimes a last minute kind of gal. In this case, she wandered the dollar store and finally decided on a pirate theme.

Oh, great, I fixed a “6” cake with red, green and blue chocolate curls. Nothing too pirate-like about that! Then I remember I had a tube of black decorating gel. I think it looks more pirate-like now... Argh!