Admittedly, I am one of those people who harbors guilt easily.

So, when I tell you that since pre-Covid, I’m often cringed when opening my pantry, you will understand why.

It’s because a bag of conchiglie has long stared back at me, almost in disbelief.

As crazy as it sounds, I could almost picture this bag of jumbo shell pasta mockingly wondering, “OK, been here a while. A long while. What’s up with that?”

And I would sheepishly almost answer back, “Ya got me, ya got me. I’ve just been too lazy to go to the trouble of boiling you, stuffing you with something, and then baking you in the oven. So there.”

But along came Andy Baraghani to vanquish my guilt.

If the noted food writer, recipe developer, and former Bon Appetit magazine food editor who has cooked at Chez Panisse says its perfectly fine not to go to the trouble of stuffing crazy-big shells, but to treat them like any other pasta, that’s exactly the permission I was needing.

I grabbed that forlorn bag and made his “Big Shells with Spicy Lamb Sausage and Pistachios.”

The recipe is from his new cookbook, “The Cook You Want to Be” (Lorena Jones Books), of which I received a review copy.

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