Ricotta Cheese Stuffed Pasta

Ingredients:

• 30-35 jumbo pasta shells
• 
  Stuffing
  20oz of ricotta cheese
• 2 cups of italian blend shredded cheese (romano, provolone, mozzarella, parmesan)
• 2 eggs
• Bunch of fresh parsley
• Zest of one lemon
• Salt to taste
• 
  Sauce
  28oz can of crushed tomatoes
• 1 teaspoon of crushed red chili pepper flakes
• 4 garlic cloves
• 2-3 tablespoon of olive oil
• Salt to taste

How to prepare, step-by-step:

1. Prepare ingredients:

   

2. Wash lemon thoroughly (many stores put something on top of their fruits and vegetables to prevent them from spoiling, so you want to remove all of them). Grate zest of all of lemon, set zest aside, you will not need the lemon itself:

   

3. Peel and chop garlic, set it aside:

   

4. Bring a pot of water to boil, salt to taste, add jumbo pasta shells in and cook according to package instructions until “al dente”:

   

5. While pasta is cooking, let’s prepare sauce. For that warm up saucepan with 2-3 tablespoons of olive oil, don’t over heat. Add chopped garlic:

   

6. And red chili pepper flakes:

   

7. Cook until fragrant (you don’t want garlics to brown) then add crushed tomatoes, bring to light simmer and cook for a minute or two, add salt to taste (if needed), then turn heat off, sauce is ready:

   

8. When pasta is “al dente”, drain liquid from it, rinse pasta with cold water and set it aside to cool down:

   

9. Now it is time to prepare stuffing. Move ricotta cheese to a mixing bowl:

   

10. Add 3/4 of lemon zest, mix:

    

11. Beat eggs lightly and mix them with ricotta:

    

12. Add chopped parsley, mix:

    

13. And shredded cheeses:

    

14. Add salt to taste and mix everything well:

    

15. Warm oven up to 350F. Sprinkle remaining of lemon zest on bottom of a baking pan:

    

16. Spread 1/3 of all sauce on the bottom of baking pan, event it out:

    

17. Working in batches, stuff each jumbo pasta shell with prepared stuffing:

    

18. And arrange them in the baking pan:

    

19. Pour remaining sauce on top, even sauce layer out:

    

20. Cover baking pan with a layer of foil and put to warmed up oven (350F). Bake for 30 mins covered, then remove foil and bake for 15 mins more:

    

21. Remove pan from the oven and serve: