Marsha's Five Cheese, Two Meat Stuffed Shells

Back in 2005, I bought a Taste of Home magazine off the rack in the store and found this recipe. While the most current recipe off their website is just slightly different, it is basically the same.  You can see that recipe here.

However, like usual, I have tweaked the recipe just a touch.  I was surprised to find that I had not posted this recipe already.  So, pardon the delay, and enjoy!

Marsha's Five Cheese, Two Meat Stuffed Shells

Ingredients

• 1 pound bulk Italian sausage
• 1 pound hamburger
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 2 packages (10 ounces) frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry
• 2 packages (8 ounces) cream cheese, cubed
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• 3 cups shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese
• 3 cups shredded cheddar cheese
• 2 cups 4% cottage cheese (one 16 oz. container)
• 1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon, optional
• 40-50ish jumbo pasta shells (1 1/2-2 boxes), cooked and drained
• Extra cheese to top (for the mozzarella and cheddar, if you buy pre-shredded cheese in 8 oz (2 cups) or 16 oz (4 cups) packages, then you will have the extra cheese you need for this step)
• SAUCE:
• 3-4 cans/jars of your favorite spaghetti sauce

Directions

• In a large skillet, cook sausage, hamburger and onion over medium heat until meat is no longer pink; drain. Transfer to a large bowl. Stir in the spinach, cream cheese and eggs. Add 3 cups mozzarella cheese, 3 cups cheddar cheese, cottage cheese, Parmesan cheese, salt, pepper and cinnamon if desired.
• Cook shells partially; approximately 6 minutes. Drain and let cool, separated on a baking sheet with a non-stick mat or wax paper liner. Stuff pasta shells with mixture mixture. Arrange in four 8-in. x 8-in. (or two 9x13) baking dishes that have been coated with cooking spray and with a thin layer of spaghetti sauce covering the bottom of pan. Spoon remaining sauce over shells. Top with remaining cheese. For the 8x8 size pans, I needed one can of Hunt's spaghetti sauce per pan (for a total of 4 cans)... for the 9x13 size pans, I only needed 1 1/2 cans per dish (for a total of 3 cans).
• Cover and bake at 350° for 45 minutes. Uncover; bake 5-10 minutes longer or until bubbly and cheese is melted. Let stand for 5 minutes before serving.
• I will freeze three of the four pan. Cover pans with two layers of tin foil and write baking instructions on the foil.

The original recipe called for just Italian sausage, which I found to be too strong.  So, then we did a batch of just hamburger, which was too bland.  In the end, a mixture of 1/2 sausage and 1/2 hamburger seemed to be the favorite for my family. But, the Italian sausage that I buy only comes in 1 pound packages... thus, I doubled the recipe and froze most of it so that we could have the meat mixture we liked without having to worry about what to do with 1/2 a pound of sausage sitting around. It doesn't take much more work or time to double the batch, and the frozen batches seemed just as tasty as the original batch, so this has become our system. If you are feeding a larger group, you could do two 9x13 pans instead.

How much sauce you need just depends on your taste. I always try to use enough sauce to cover the shells pretty well because any bit of noodle that is sticking up out of the sauce will get crunchy and hard in the oven.

I would say an 8x8 size pan feeds our family of five with little to no leftovers. A 9x13 gives us plenty of leftovers for another day. So you can use that to figure if you want to do four 8x8 or two 9x13.

I feel like this recipe is the only recipe I ever make that actually has a "secret ingredient"; the cinnamon. The first time I made it, I was skeptical about liking cinnamon in an Italian based dish... but we actually really love it, and it's just a hint. Be brave! Try it!