Kitchen Oops: Not So Stuffed Shells

Today's blog is a little different.  Every once in a while I think I have a fabulous idea for a recipe, and I go ahead and attempt it.  That was the case the other night.  I wanted to take a healthier spin on stuffed shells so I used whole wheat mini shells and conjured up a sauce made with fat-free ricotta, spinach, grated parmesean and a little bit of low-fat milk. It looked really great and even smelled pretty tasty.  In retrospect, the dish was a complete failure (one look at my fiance's face as he tried a bite at dinnertime and I knew it was a goner).

The low fat substitutions did not lend themselves well to the overall taste of the dish that I was hoping to recreate.  It needed way more salt and just that "something else" that was clearly missing.  I think that "something else", in this case, was nutmeg.  I know nutmeg and spinach work really well together and because I didn't have any, I tried to make a combination spice using a little curry powder and cinnamon.  When I tasted the two spices together before adding it to the dish, it actually worked.  It was by no means a substitution for the nutmeg but I thought it would be better than nothing. It wasn't.  It was pretty awful.  Like, eating potpouri awful.

In the end, I still wanted to blog about this because it's a lesson learned.  Cooking is all about experimenting, trying new things, and hoping for the best.  Sometimes it'll end up a success, other times it will end up in the trash.  This dish was still edible but just not what I was hoping for, and since I wasn't thrilled I'm not even going to give you the recipe.  But here's how she looked anyway...