Cannelloni

Sunday is the day I chuck some recipes on the blog so that I don’t lose them.

Here’s the cannelloni recipe I currently use. It’s nice but not perfect, so within the next couple of weeks I’m hoping to find a new recipe to try out and post up here. Let me know if you’ve got a good one!

My biggest problem with the recipe is probably not the recipe’s fault. I’m just super slow at preparing it. The real challenge will be to find a recipe I can prepare faster.

Anyhoo, courtesy of Women’s Weekly:

Ingredients

Cannelloni

• 1kg Spinach, trimmed and coarsely chopped
• 500g ricotta cheese
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups (120g) grated parmesan
• 1/4 cup chopped fresh mint (I usually skip this)
• 2 teaspoons fresh thyme
• 2 teaspoons fresh rosemary
• 250g cannelloni tubes

Creamy Tomato Sauce

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 medium brown onion, chopped
• 4 cloves garlic
• 1.6kg canned, diced tomatoes
• 1/2 cup (125ml) pouring cream
• 1 teaspoon white sugar

Method

The sauce

1. Heat oil in large saucepan; cook onion, stirring until softened. Add garlic.
2. Add tomatoes (I frequently blend the tomatoes first for John’s benefit and to skip out on the blending later when the sauce is hot) and bring to the boil.
3. Simmer for about 20 minutes or until sauce thickens slightly.
4. Cool for 10 minutes, blend or process sauce with cream and sugar until smooth. (Since I’ve blended the tomatoes earlier already, I just add the cream and sugar)

The Cannelloni

1. Preheat oven to 180°C
2. Cook washed, drained spinach in heated large saucepan, stirring until wilted. Drain; when cool enough to handle, squeeze out excess moisture
3. Combine spinach in bowl with ricotta, eggs, 1/2 cup of parmesan and the herbs. Fill cannelloni with this mixture.
4. Spread a third of the sauce into a 24cm x 35cm-ish dish, top with pasta tubes then top with remaining sauce. Because instant pasta tubes are usually tiny, you can usually get a couple of layers of the pasta tubes in.
5. Cook, covered, for 20 minutes. Uncover, sprinkle pasta with remaining parmesan; cook for an additional 15 minutes or until pasta is tender and cheese is browned lightly.

The supposed stats:

Prep + cook time: 1 hour (yeah right…)

Serves: 6

Photos to come ‘cos I’ve left my phone somewhere and need to fetch it.

[edit] Photos!

Tune in next week to find out what to do with the cream you’d have left over out of a 300ml container.