Baker's Mark

Cook’s Country Stuffed Shells.

Good grief, these were a lot of work. Stuffed shells are certainly pretty (the red and green would look good on a holiday table), but flavor-wise, they’re basically lasagna in a tuxedo.

Make It

Meat Sauce:

6 oz 93% lean ground beef

1 tbsp soy sauce

3 (14.5 oz) cans diced tomatoes

1 tbsp olive oil

1 onion, chopped fine

2 tbsp tomato paste

3 garlic cloves, minced

1/4 tsp red pepper flakes

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 cup finely chopped fresh basil

Stuffed Shells:

Salt

1 (12 oz) box jumbo pasta shells

12 saltines, broken into pieces

2.5 c fat-free cottage cheese, drained if it has a lot of liquid

2 c shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese

1/2 c grated parmesan cheese

2 tbsp chopped fresh basil

2 garlic cloves, minced

Instructions:

Grind meat and soy sauce in food processor until well combined. Add tomatoes to processor and pulse until coarsely ground.

Heat oil in large sauce pan over medium heat until shimmering. Add onion and cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Stir in beef mixture and cook about 3 minutes. Add tomato paste, garlic, and red pepper and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute. Stir in processed tomatoes and salt and simmer until sauce is slightly thickened, about 25 minutes. Off heat, stir in basil; set aside. Sauce can be refrigerated in airtight container for up to 3 days.

Cook shells in 4 qts of boiling water with 1 tbsp salt. Cook until al dente, about 12 minutes. Drain pasta and transfer to kitchen town-lined baking sheet. Reserve 24 shells (I used a lot more than 24 shells - I actually ended up using a second, smaller baking dish in addition to the 13x9 pan that this recipe calls for). Discard any shells that are broken.

Pulse crackers in clean food processor bowl until finely ground. Add cottage cheese, 1.5 c of mozzarella, parmesan, basil, garlic, and 1/2 tsp salt and process until smooth; transfer to large plastic storage bag. Using scissors, cut off 1 corner of bag and pipe 2 tbsp filling into each shell.

Spread half of meat sauce over bottom of 13x9-inch baking dish. Arrange filled shells, seam side up, over sauce in dish. Spread remaining sauce over shells. Cover with aluminum foil and bake until bubbling around edges, 35-40 minutes. remove foil and sprinkle with remaining mozzarella. Bake until cheese is melted, about 5 minutes. Let cool 15 minutes before serving.

Upside down apple cake (Cook’s Illustrated)

Not the world’s greatest pictures, but you get the idea. This recipe called for 4 apples. Only 1,000,000,000 left to use.

Cook’s Illustrated Chewy Sugar Cookies

A note on cookies

Most people, me included, will bake 2 trays of cookies at a time, one on each rack of the oven. The folks over at ATK say to bake only 1 tray at a time because the 2nd tray will affect the air flow and the cookies won’t bake evenly. To this, I previously would have said pSHAHH. But in actuality, it does make a difference. Take a look at the cookies on the left and the cookies on the rack. Both came from sets of cookies baked on identical trays. I even rotated each tray and switched racks halfway through baking.

Does this mean I’ll always bake 1 tray at a time? Mmmmmm nah. Cookies still tasted the same, regardless of the difference in appearance.

Soft and Chewy Peanut Butter Cookies, Cook’s Country October/November 2010

As usual, America’s Test Kitchen was spot-on with this recipe for peanut butter cookies. I’ve specifically been searching for a recipe for chewy cookies, not those shortbread-esque discs with the hash marks of fork tines across the tops.

The one change I would make to this recipe is that I would make 1 tbsp-sized balls (the cookie to the right in the picture), not 2-tbsps (cookie to the left). But that’s all a matter of personal preference. I like my cookies to be about the size of hockey pucks.