Cheesy Shell Bake

From: Deanna


Ingredients:
1 box of medium shells (cook al dente)
1lb of ground beef
1 jar of your favorite tomato sauce or if you make it yourself, about the same amount as a jar.
2-3Tbls of dried parsley
8ozs or more of sour cream
Cheddar Cheese (grated) an 8oz block will do, but you can add more depending on your cheese preference.

Start the water for the noodles and while they are cooking, brown your beef add salt and pepper to taste and diced garlic and onions if you have them and like that.
Once the beef is cooked, add the entire jar of tomato sauce. You can spruce up your sauce with whatever you like basil, rosemary, oregano bay leaves ect..
When the shells finish cooking, (make sure that you don't over cook the shells because you are going to bake the dish after all is said and done and you don't want them to be too soft) drain them and add them to the sauce beef mixture.

In a separate bowl, add the sour cream, parsley and about a third of the block of cheese. Mix all the ingredients.

Now, take about half of the shell-beef-sauce mixture and put it into a 13x9 baking pan. Once you have finished with this, you will take the sour cream mixture and layer it over the shells in the pan. (This can get a bit messy and frustrating so I separate it out into 6 huge dollops of sour cream all over the noodles. Then I use the back of a spoon to spread it evenly over the noodles.) If you find that you don't have enough sour cream mixture make a little bit more. This is my favorite part of the dish so I tend to really layer it thick.

Then put the rest of the shell-sauce-beef on the top and cover with the rest of the grated cheese and cook at 350 for 25-30 minutes. Until all the cheese is melted and is hot.