Pumpkin & Ricotta Stuffed Shells

I know, it's been a while since I've blogged.  I've truly missed it but life is just so busy right now I don't have any spare time.  We've had some amazing meals and I'm hoping to be able to share those recipes will you at some point!  I will admit of all the things I've had to give up lately, blogging is one I miss the most.

Today, according to someone on the internet, is Pumpkin Day.  It must be true.  You can't put anything on the internet that isn't true!

I'd pinned this recipe a while ago.  We found ourselves at Cossetta's in St. Paul today.  If you know Cossetta's you know what an amazing place it is if you love food!  I decided while we were wandering around that I would make this dish for dinner.  I picked up the whole milk ricotta, pecorino Romano and some "gigante" noodles to stuff.  I also bought sauce.  Yes, I was scolded for buying not making the sauce, but there was no time today to make sauce!  It wasn't like I bought Ragu!  I bought Cossetta sauce!

 

Here is a link to the recipe:
Pumpkin & Ricotta Stuffed Shells

This sounds delicious, pumpkin, ricotta, sauce, fresh sage (my herb garden is still over-flowing with it), how could it not be good?  Yes, I know I should have purchased a baking pumpkin at Farmer's Market and used that but I decided to make this after we'd left the market and there was no time to go back so canned pumpkin would have to do.

 
This is really pretty easy.  Boil up the noodles, I kept them a little less than al dente because they were going to spend 45 minutes in the oven soaking up sauce, and let them cool.  I did have a few broken ones, my fault, I didn't use a big enough pot to boil them!

The filling is pumpkin puree, ricotta cheese, Romano cheese, garlic, an egg, salt and pepper.

I filled the shells using a pastry bag.  I just find it easier that way!

Into the bottom of my baking dish went the sauce.  The recipe called for tomato basil sauce but while at Cosetta I saw they had arrabiata.  We love arrabiata so that's what I used.

This is baked covered for 30 minutes then uncovered for another 10 or 15, then topped with  more of the Romano cheese.

While it was baking I cleaned up some Brussels sprouts I purchased this morning at Farmer's Market.  I sauteed up some bacon, removed it from the pan, then cooked the sprouts in the bacon fat and added the bacon back at the end.  I'll diet tomorrow!  I tossed this yummy mixture with some Roth Kase blue cheese.  Delicious!

 
This was delicious!  The pumpkin cut the richness of the cheese and the sage came through beautifully.  The kick of the arribiatta sauce was a nice compliment to to the pumpkin/ricotta mixture.  I will definitely make these again.  I think this would make a nice filling for any pasta.  Maybe I'll use it in ravioli next time.