Large pasta shells are good to have on hand at any time.

He drained the pasta shells, and was running cold water over them when the phone rang.

You'd do better building a car engine out of pasta shells."

It was pizza on English muffins and stuffed pasta shells.

They were like those little pasta shells.

(You will notice that 5 to 8 of your pasta shells will have broken during cooking.

Using a spoon, fill the pasta shells.

It is simply a calzone filled with pasta shells stuffed with different sauces.

One example is "crab" stuffed pasta shells.

The term cavatelli has two meanings: the most common meaning is small pasta shells that look like miniature hot dog buns.

Winning, too, are pasta shells in a tomato-tinged and garlic-infused cream sauce strewn with baby shrimp.

It also has a large cylindrical crate full of rice, and boxes of jumbo pasta shells.

"We try not to run up the cost by making labor-intensive foods," she said, ruling out, for example, pasta shells stuffed with several types of cheese.

The dud of the night was a pasta salad featuring smoked shrimp, chopped tomato and pasta shells.

We liked large pasta shells stuffed with ricotta and spinach, topped with a mushroom duxelles.

All you need, he says, is "Ragu and three different kinds of pasta shells, and you fool yourself that it's a different meal each time."

While one group of children ran relay races, another lined up for lunch, marching into the kitchen to choose between freshly roasted chicken or cheese-stuffed pasta shells.

The otherwise-brilliant new veg cookbook from river cottage has a recipe that masterfully combines boiled pasta shells with tinned chick peas and nothing else.

Recommended dishes: Escargots, stuffed mussels, pasta shells with shrimp, prime rib, fresh salmon, cheesecake, key lime tart, chocolate torte.

But the ravioli could not redeem a dish of pasta shells, four cheeses, béchamel and breadcrumbs, an outrageous exercise in senselessly gooey overkill.

If you visit the USA, do try to find some of the very large pasta shells that are available there - one of these per person makes a wonderful starter.

Pasta Pull-Togethers Over at Henri Bendel, it is Thea Anema's spiraled wire buttons, which look like pasta shells.

Some current choices are confit of duck, pasta shells filled with broccoli, and cheese or chicken pate with dilled carrot sauce; each comes with salad and costs about $6.

Sardinian malloreddu ($15) - pasta shells sauced with tomato cream, artichokes and fava beans - sounded like the perfect spring dish, but the beans had lost their green snap.

The second half of the note is clear and accurate: his daughter, Tess, is indeed at a neighbor's house for the evening, and there is a casserole with stuffed pasta shells in the refrigerator.