Napa Valley and Trying a New Recipe

Hi there!  Welcome back! Did I tell you that I visited Napa Valley last month?  My husband was going there for a conference and wives were especially invited this time around.  So, even though I was dreading the almost seven-hour flight, I decided to go along!

The conference was held at the Meritage Resort in Napa, which is located pretty much as you enter the town's region. This monument is what you see as you enter Napa and is adjacent to the Meritage property.  The resort was wonderful because the property contains a vineyard, giving me a great place to walk every morning.  

Here is some of the scenery I saw from the walk in the Meritage vineyard.

As you can see, it is rustic and earthly, which I appreciated.

The idea of farm-to-table dining is very big in Napa, and I cannot tell you how jealous I am of the luscious herb and vegetable gardens I saw in that town.  They were inspiring!  Most of the meals we enjoyed while staying there were very gourmet which I felt was more of a testament to the farm-to-table idea.

I am intrigued by artichoke plants.  I have never been able to grow them myself so, 

this plant was awesome to me.

This was a raised bed garden at one of the wineries in Napa Valley.  The vineyard is called The Prisoner Winery and was lovely to see.  Most of the vineyards we visited do not let you on the property unless you purchase a wine tasting package.  It was nice that this vineyard allowed us to walk around a little bit.

While at the conference my husband and I were invited to a few dinners and other touring opportunities. My husband's career is in the private corporate aviation field and one such dinner invite came from a company called Jet Aviation.  They invited us to a wonderful night of a multi-course meal combined with several wine pairings at the Bouchaine Vineyards in Napa.  It was a lovely winery on top of a hill.  Unfortunately, it was a rainy night, and we were not able to go out on the expansive deck and see what I am sure was a beautiful view.

Also, part of the evening was a goodie bag filled with all sorts of fun things given to us as a gift. One of the items in the bag was this cookbook.

I love looking through cookbooks and I thoroughly enjoyed doing that with this one.  So much so, that I decided to try one of the recipes.  Truthfully, I do not cook or bake much anymore.  It is just my husband and myself at home and most of the time I make some old standbys, or we go out to eat or order take-out. It is a bad habit I know but most of the time it works for us.

Because of copyright laws I am not going to publish the recipe.  However, I will do my best to walk you through my process of making it.  

Here are some of the ingredients I used. They are pretty standard.  That is what I liked about the cookbook, which is called Half Baked Harvest Super Simple.  It is written by Tieghan Gerard.  I liked that the recipes were easy to follow and as I said, used basic ingredients.

The first step was to cook the sausage in olive oil.  You were supposed to use hot Italian sausage but, I do not like hot things, so I used sweet Italian sausage.

Next you add crushed tomatoes and oregano and other seasonings.  You were supposed to add red bell pepper too but, my husband doesn't like it.  I am beginning to see that I changed this recipe up quite a bit because of our preferences.  I hope the author will not be too mad at me!

After the sauce simmers for 10 to 15 minutes you add in 8 ounces of frozen spinach, thawed and drained, of course.

While the sauce was simmering and before I added in the spinach, I mixed together ricotta cheese, shredded gouda and chopped basil leaves.

I also had been boiling water to cook the jumbo shells.  When the shells finished cooking, I drained and rinsed them.  

You were supposed to put the ricotta cheese mixture into a plastic zip-top bag and slit one end to pipe the filling into the shells, but my basil was too chunky, so I filled them using a tablespoon.

Oh, I forgot to mention that all of this is made in an oven-proof skillet.  

You place the filled shells on top of the sauce.

Next, top the whole thing with 8-ounces of mozzarella cheese.  Hence, the Spinach and Three Cheese Stuffed Shells recipe.

You then place the skillet into the oven at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes.

This is how it looked when it came out of the oven.

As per instructions, I topped it off with some fresh basil leaves.  These were from my garden. Aren't you impressed?

I enjoyed cooking this dish.  It was fun to get back into the kitchen and use some of my pans and utensils.  I felt proud of myself and thought I had accomplished much.  The final dish was very good although I think I would add a touch of sugar to the sauce if I made it again.  It was a little bitter for my taste but, you may love it just as it is supposed to be. There are many more recipes I want to try from this cookbook.  I think I might try the chocolate chip cookie one next.

Overall, I would recommend purchasing the cookbook.  The photos are lovely, and the directions are very, very easy to follow.

***Please note that I have not been compensated in any way for writing the post.  I am simply sharing my own experience :).

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