life is getting organised in my new home. i now have my cats up here with me, started hospital orientation today and haven’t had any mysterious chest pain since moving.
but now in the spirit of good food blogs everywhere (quick plug for Mike Spoodle’s Ugly Food for an Ugly Dude) i decided to take you through one of my favourite meals that i can actually make without a recipe, and i took photos along the way which was relatively awkward considering my only means of doing this is with the inbuilt camera in my macbook.
the amount of photographs is entirely unnecessary, but they were entirely fun to take
so!
Spinach & Ricotta Cannelloni (serves 5-6)
ingredients:
- large bunch of spinach/silverbeet
- small onion
- 500g/1lb smooth light ricotta
- 2 eggs
- ½ cup grated parmesan cheese
- tin of crushed tomatoes (i usually buy one with garlic & oregano)
- a box of cannelloni shells
- ¾ cup grated cheddar cheese
method
- preheat the oven to 200˚C/400˚F
- cut off the white part of the spinach and give the green part a rinse
- chop up the spinach roughly as well as the onion
- sauté the onion in a large frying pan with a bit of olive oil, then add some water to the frying pan and toss in the spinach
- pop a lid on and let it steam up and wilt down. drain off the water and set aside
- in a mixing bowl, chuck in the ricotta, eggs, half the parmesan and a generous amount of cracked pepper
- pop the spinach in the bowl and mix well
- in a large baking dish, tip in 1/3 of the tin of crushed tomatoes and spread it around so it coats the base of the dish
- now here is the messy part! you can use a piping bag to fill the shells, but i find it’s easier and less wasteful to just squish in the mixture with your hands. just keep a thumb at one end to stop the filling falling straight out
- keep going until your dish is full, any spare mixture can be used to plug any gaps between cannelloni shells
- tip the rest of the crushed tomatoes over the top and spread it around, then cover with the cheddar cheese and remaining parmesan. crack some pepper over the top for good measure
- cover with foil and bake for 20min
- remove foil, turn heat down to 180˚C/350˚F and bake for a further 10min or until the cheese has gone golden and a fork easily pierces the cannelloni shells
i served mine with some garlic bread and a salad and it was friggin’ delicious
(ps. do you like my housemate’s John Deere hoodie? it’s velour!)
