Stuffed Shells with Pesto

I've gone on a few blog rants about how I LOVE Jaclyn and her awesome webpage. Plus, she's from my home state, so she's even cooler. One of her favorite recipes (according to her blog) is Stuffed Shells with Pesto. I love pesto. I love stuffed shells. Cody, however, feels a little iffy about tofu turned ricotta.

Not in this meal!!!

Found in the beautiful Isa's cookbook, Vegan with a Vengeance, the recipes for both stuffed shells and pesto are combined and made into a beautiful dinner. The brother-in-law grew some basil over the summer and it turned tree-like towards the end, so I took it all. :) Good thing, too, because the pesto calls for so much basil my house smelled like an italian restaurant for days!



Stuffed Shells with Pesto
Prep time: 20 minutes
Cook time: 15 minutes

Classic Pesto Ingredients
Makes about 1 1/2 cups

½ cup walnuts (I used pine nuts because I have a hard time thinking about pesto without them)
3 cups packed basil leaves
3 cloves garlic, smashed and coarsely chopped
1 ½ tsp coarse salt
½ cup extra-virgin olive oil, or more to taste (I added little by little...I probably only used 1/4 cup total)
½ cup nutritional yeast (optional - but it's not going to be the same without it! Cody & I agree, this was the best pesto ever.)
2 tsp lemon juice

1. Toast the walnuts (or pine nuts) in a toaster oven at 350* for 5 minutes or on a baking sheet in a conventional oven for 10 minutes, turning once. (Again, me being different, I put them in a pan and cook them for like, 5 minutes, flipping a few times.)

2. Combine the nuts, basil, garlic, and salt in a food processor or blender and process while you add the olive oil in a slow, steady stream. Add the nutritional yeast and lemon juice, and pulse to combine. The sauce should be the consistency of a slightly grainy paste, not a puree. I like it to be a little thinner so it's easier to spread it on the shells so I add a little more olive oil until it's the right consistency.

Basil-Tofu Ricotta Ingredients
Makes about 2 cups

1 pound firm tofu, pressed
2 tsp lemon juice
1 clove garlic, minced
¼ tsp salt
Dash fresh black pepper
Handful of fresh basil leaves, finely chopped
2 tsp olive oil
¼ cup nutritional yeast

1. In a large bowl, mush up the tofu with your hands until it's crumbly.

2. Add the lemon juice, garlic, salt, pepper, and basil. Mush with your hands again; this you want to get it very mushy so squeeze through your fingers and mush until it reaches the consistency of ricotta cheese.

3. Add the olive oil, stir with a fork. Add the nutritional yeast and mix all ingredients well. Cover and refrigerate until ready to use.

Stuffed Shells with Pesto Ingredients

Classic pesto recipe
Basil-Tofu Ricotta recipe
½ box of jumbo shells

1. Preheat oven to 350° F. Lightly spray a baking dish with olive oil.

2. Boil water and cook shells until al dente. Drain.

3. Scoop about 2 tablespoons of Basil-Tofu ricotta into each shell (enough to fill it). Place each shell with the open side facing down on the baking dish.

4. Smear about a tablespoon of pesto on to each shell. It's not going to look pretty, but it's tasty.

5. Bake for about 15 minutes. Remove from oven, and ENJOY!



I highly recommend only stuffing as much as you need. Because the pasta isn't in a sauce, the leftovers get pretty stiff. We put a little bit of tomato sauce on them every time we heated them up, which worked well, but only cook as many shells as you're going to eat.

This is definitely one of our new favorites. I'm going to use both the pesto and the ricotta again. Thanks, Jaclyn! You're the best!