Cheesy Sausage and Spinach Stuffed Shells

I made an impulse buy of some large pasta shells. I was planning to make classic stuffed shells, but Doug asked for some meat in them.  I obliged, here are the Cheesy Spinach and Sausage shells that came together for dinner tonight.

Ingredients:

• 12 ounces large shells (1 package), cooked al dente 
• 3 large links Italian sausage (from Costco, maybe a pound)
• 1 bell pepper, diced
• ~ 30 ounces tomato sauce (I added some sausage chunks and red bell peppers)
• 2 cups cottage cheese
• 2 cups mozzarella cheese, plus a large handful for sprinkling on top
• 2 large handfuls spinach
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1 teaspoon dried basil
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

Instructions:

1. Cook the pasta. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Lightly spray a 9 x 13 pan with cooking spray
   (A glass pan is preferred, so you can pre-heat casserole if you want to eat sooner)
3. Cook the sausage and bell peppers in a pan on the stove.
   (I started cooking the links, then sliced them and finished cooking saudage 'coins')
4. Take about 2/3 of the cooked sausage and peppers, and grind up in a food processor
   (Mix remaining sausage and peppers into your tomato sauce)
5. Add cottage cheese to sausage mixture, and whirr together
6. Add 2 cups of mozzarella cheese, the spinach and the spices, and whirr together
7.  Spoon about 1/3 of the sauce onto the 9 x 13 pan
8. Using a cookie scoop, scoop about a tablespoon of cheesy sausage mixture into each shell, and place in the pan.
   (You may have to stack a couple of shells.)
9. Optional - if you want to speed up dinner a bit and you used a glass pan, place in microwave on high for 5 minutes.
10. Place pan in the middle of the oven, and bake for 20 - 40 minutes (the shorter time if you preheated pan)
11. Remove pan from oven, sprinkle with a handful or so of mozzarella cheese.
        
    
      
12. Serve with steamed asparagus, or green salad.

Carole's Notes:

They went well with steamed asparagus. This is a pretty easy recipe - I wrote it up to remember the proportions of cottage cheese and mozzarella cheese. I used both my large and my small cookie scoop, but I think the smaller one would have worked for a more even filling distribution.