Today, I’m here to share a Pinterest success story! For the most part, my Pinterest is full of recipes I’ll never make and crafts I’ll never get around to, but every now and then I’m so inspired by something, that I feel a sense of urgency to recreate it. In comes the stuffed shells. Jenna Weber of Eat Live Run posted this recipe on PBS Food, and I have to say.. I highly recommend it.

A lot of vegan bloggers talk about how they fed their non-vegan friends a dish and then surprised them with the ingredients at the end. “Bet you didn’t know carrots were in that, DID YA?!” The stories all sound plausible, but I’ve never quite had that level of success with a dish.. until now. I served the meal to Xavier (Mr. Boyfriend Approved), and he loved it! After he’d eaten everything on his plate, not to mention seconds, I told him that the dish was vegan. He was surprised, and slightly confused. I puzzled him further when I revealed that the filling was tofu instead of ricotta cheese. That really threw him for a loop! I’m happy to report that after he found out, he didn’t love it any less. VICTORY!

My only notes on prep are as follows:

• I recommend using only one teaspoon of salt.
• A blender will work fine if you don’t have a food processor. Since ricotta is traditionally a little chunky, there’s no need for fine-blending.
• I mixed in a half cup of the marinara into the tofu mixture.
• The hardest part is actually stuffing the shells! I will make the ricotta filling again, but probably for lasagna only.