Spinach and ricotta cannelloni

modified from the back of a san remo dried pasta packet

This is another slow cooking on a Sunday meal, but trust me, it's sooo worth the effort.

Tomato Sauce

1 carrot diced

1 red onion diced

3 sticks celery diced

2 cloves garlic

basil (I used dried, fresh would be better)

2 tins tomatoes

a pinch of salt

pinch of sugar (optional)

Sauté onion, garlic and celery until translucent. Add carrots, tomatoes, salt and basil, bring to boil and them simmer for one hour. One hour? you ask... well, yes. call me crazy - but tinned tomatoes taste better if you give them a little while, as in 60 minutes. This is a lesson I learnt as a student living off tinned tomatoes and pasta...

after the hour is up, blend well with a hand held mixer. I think this is important for the texture of the dish.

the tomato sauce may need ~1/2 to 1 tsp sugar if your veggie's aren't too sweet. Taste it after you blend it and see :) It will probably have reduced significantly, so add some water so that it returns approximately to its original volume

cannelloni filling

packet of frozen spinach (defrosted and squeezed of excess water)

2 eggs

375 gm fresh ricotta

1/2 cup tasty cheddar grated

1/4 cup parmesan grated

2 tbl pine nuts roasted

large bunch parsley

10 mint leaves (go easy on this-can easily overpower)

1 clove purple garlic

 

Tip: If you are using dried pasta, you can test out which baking dish fits the tubes (before you fill them) as a single layer

Mix all filling ingredients well and then start the painful process of filling the cannelloni tubes. I was going to buy fresh pasta, but the only stuff they had in the supermarket was cracked and on special... I had flashes of me going mental in the kitchen with broken fresh pasta, as I was trying to cook a special meal for my beau I decided to be on the safe side and go old school with a packet of dried pasta tubes. Which are a bitch to fill... it took me about 20 minutes to push the filling into them... but totally worth it.

Place a little sauce on the base of a large baking dish. Put filled tubes as snugly as possible and then cover with the rest of the sauce, top with a little grated cheese and then bake at 180⁰C for 30-35 minutes. It’s very important to not overcook this as the ricotta can dehydrate and go grainy.  Test if the pasta is cooked by inserting a sharp knife or satay stick, there should be no resistance.

Notes:

Fresh herbs in the filling are important, but not critical. The tiny bit of mint I put in this was just lovely. Dill would also be nice but not too much

If I'd had fresh spinach i would have used it, but it is not in season yet

The original recipe calls for 3 egg yolks, which would have left me with the problem of what to do with 3 egg whites, make and omelette you say? hmm yes well touché... the thing is, I don't enjoy egg white omelettes and I have no need to make a bunch of meringues. As it turned out, two whole eggs worked fine!

The cheese component of the filling is totally flexible, I only used parmesan because I had a block I was trying to use up, feta would be also be a good addition!

I ended up having a little fight with my boyfriend (something about me accidently having my phone on silent and him needing me to pick him up) and so long story short I forgot to take a photo of the finished product... the leftovers although very yummy, looked very unphotogenic... my apologies.