I went to this brilliant cheese making demo (Mad Millie). I was in food heaven. We made ricotta, mozzarella, feta and yoghurt. I gave the ricotta a shot myself last weekend. I reckon it was a success but I realised pretty quickly that even I wouldn’t consume that much cheese on my own so I thought I would use it in this recipe. One of my lunch club girls made it before, mine is probably a much less healthy version. The filling of the Cannelloni tubes is a bit tricky, well more messy than tricky. Might be a good one to get the kids involved in, if you have some. I used 2 teaspoons to fill them; 1 to fill them with the ricotta mixture and the other one’s handle to push the mixture in. You could use a piping bag if you had one, it would be much handier.
The photo doesn’t do this justice, it’s oozing with deliciousness.
Serves 4-5 people
Ingredients
10 cannelloni tubes (instant kind)
1 tin of tomatoes with garlic and herbs
100ml passata
1 onion, diced
1 garlic clove, minced
1 teaspoon of allspice (I didn’t have nutmeg so used this instead)
Oil spray
250g ricotta cheese
50g Mozzarella cheese, shredded
50g parmesan, shredded
250g baby spinach
1/2 egg, beaten
2 tablespoons fresh basil
Salt and pepper
Method
1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.
2. Heat a frying pan and spray some oil on it. Fry the allspice and the garlic for 2 minutes. Add the spinach; it does seem like a lot of spinach but it wilts away to nothing. On that note, let it wilt down and then remove from the heat and cool.
3. In a big bowl, beat the egg and the ricotta until smooth. Season with salt and pepper.
4. Add the spinach to the ricotta mixture.
5. Re-heat the same pan that you used for the spinach. Spray some more oil on the pan and saute the onions until soft and golden.
6. Add the tin of tomatoes and passata and simmer until the sauce has thickened.
7. While the sauce is reducing start preparing the cannelloni tubes. Add the ricotta filling into the tube with one teaspoon and push the mixture down with the handle of another teaspoon. Fill the remainder of the tubes in the same way.
8. Once the sauce has reduce, tear the basil and add to the sauce. Season the sauce with salt and pepper.
9. Add the cannelloni tubes to an oven proof dish. Pour over the sauce and sprinkle the cheeses over the sauce.
10. Bake in the oven for 40 minutes until the cheese has melted and is golden brown.
11. Serve with a green salad.
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