Filled Pasta Shells with lemon-ricotta and caremelized mushrooms

Taste Explosion!

About a year or two ago, an awesome caterer settled around the corner of the home where we used to live. It's called after the name of the owner: Stach
It's an awesome place to get ready-to-go-meals, cooked freshly every day, and most of it is meatless. But more important: all the incredients are from local farmers and manufacturers, and picked by the season. You can imagine, we loved to go there after a busy day of work, and choose what ever we liked per person. It's a pitty it's a bit far now to go there more often, though it's better for my bankaccount for sure!

One of the first meals I bought there, were stuffed pasta shells with ricotta, topped with onions and mushrooms. It's delicate taste stayed in my mind for ever, and when they decided not to make it anymore, just to make room for new dishes which were just as good or even better, I just thought to give it a shot and make it myself.

This is the result, and believe me, it's like a taste bomb in your mouth! It's awesome! Even my kids couldn't recist the zesty mushrooms, and that's really something.

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 Ingredients (4 persons)

20 pasta shells
1 can chopped organic tomatoes
100 ml cream
50 gr. butter
4 tbsp olive oil
1 carton (250 gr) small mushrooms
2 red onions
5 cloves of garlic
250 gr (1 can) ricotta
100 ml white wine
Juice and zest of 1 lemon
100 gr. pamesan cheese and a bit extra to sprinkle over
pepper and salt

Directions

Caremelized mushrooms:

• Clean and cut the larger mushrooms in half
• Slize 1 red onion into fine rings
• Chop 2 garlic cloves
• Add 50 gr. of butter to a pan, including 2 tbsp of olive oil
• Bring to medium heat, add the onions, garlic and mushrooms, wait till they get golden, but not really brown.
• Than turn them over to a higher pan, which you can cover.
• Add the zest and juice of 1 lemon, 100 ml of white wine, pepperand salt to taste, turn down the heat and let simmer, while stirring now and than, for about 20 minutes. Be careful they don't burn!

Set aside, covered.

Patsashells:
Meanwhile, prepare the pastashells as directed, drain and wait until you can stuff them.

 Sauce:

• Again, chop 1 onion finely, chop one garlic clove and bring 2 tbsp of olive oil to heat.
• Add garlic and onion, stirr until they turn light brown, add 1 can of slized tomatoes, the cream, pepper and salt to taste, and let simmer on low heat for approximately 7 'till 10 minutes.
• Add the sauce to a baking dish

Filling:

• Preheat the oven at 150C.
• Add ricotta, 1 tsp of oregano, 100 gr parmesan cheese, 2 garlic cloves and zest of 1 lemon to a bowl. 
• Mix with pepper and salt to taste.

Final preperation:

• Stuff the shells one by one with the filling and place them neatly into the sauce.
• Sprinkle with some parmesan cheese, 
• cover the bowl with silver foil and place the dish into the oven for approximately 15 minutes.

Meanwhile heat up the mushrooms on low heat and when the pasta comes out, garnish it all nicely on a plate, topped with the mushrooms and some chopped chive.