Convenience foods are not for me, obviously. Why make things easy if you can make them unnecessarily complicated? If I had my way, I would actually roll my own pasta, make my own ricotta, and grow my own vegetables. Sadly, the circumstances of my life (such as, you know, people at work insisting that I actually produce something that isn’t edible) are kind of prohibitive.
In order to fulfill my need for D.I.Y cooking endeavors, I made these canneloni. And while I kept dreaming about owning a pasta machine, a goat farm, and a flourishing allotment full of home-grown spinach leaves, I had lots of fun AND produced a meal that elicited clearly audible CHOMPS!
The one problem I’ve always had with canneloni, is that they are too heavy for me. I make a mean béchamel, but I can’t stomach more than a few spoonfuls of it. That’s why this version is much lighter, and packed with vegetables. Mushrooms lend a hearty, meaty flavor without the meat, and a few spoonfuls of ricotta add a creamy texture without the heaviness of béchamel.
This recipe could easily be converted to a lasagna: instead of rolling the pasta, place it in between alternating layers of sauce and vegetables.
Hand-rolled canneloni with spinach and mushrooms
- 1 red onion, finely chopped
- 1/2 to 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped or pressed
- 200 gr/7 ounces brown button mushrooms (kastanjechampignons), thinly sliced
- 1 small handful fresh basil leaves, chopped
- 300 gr/10 ounces fresh spinach
- 1 cup ricotta
- 1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
- 1 quantity tomato sauce (I made some D. most of I.Y. sauce, and tossed in some finely chopped basil stems when adding the tomatoes), or 3 cups tomato sauce from a bottle or can
- 6 20 by 30 cm sheets fresh pasta (8 by 12 inches) – I used fresh lasagna sheets from Albert Heijn
- the usual suspects: salt, pepper, olive oil
- extra parmesan for serving
- 20 by 30 cm/8 by 12 inch baking dish – oiled
Step one: the mushroom filling
Heat some oil in a skillet over medium/high heat. Fry the mushrooms and onion with some salt until well browned, fully cooked and fragrant (about 8 minutes). Add the oregano and garlic towards the end (after about 6 minutes). Take the mushrooms off the heat and mix in some pepper and the basil. It should look like the picture on the side.
In another skillet, heat some oil over high heat and add the spinach with some salt. Keep the spinach moving until it’s wilted and cooked (about 5 minutes). Put the spinach in a colander and let it cool slightly. When it’s cool enough to handle, squeeze out as much of the moisture as you can. Chop it roughly, and mix it with the ricotta and the parmesan. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Preheat oven to 180C/350F.
Spread a ladle of tomato sauce in the bottom of the oiled baking dish. Take one of the pasta sheets and spread a spoonful of the mushroom mixture along the short edge, about 2 cm/1 inch from the edge. Spread 1/6th of the spinach mixture across the rest of the sheet, leaving about 2cm/1 inch free, as pictured (and by the way: I got stung by a wasp the day before, which is why my hand looks so toddlerishly plump). Fold the pasta across the mushrooms and roll it into a cigar shape. Repeat with the rest of the pasta sheets, to produce 6 HUGE canneloni. Place the canneloni seem side down in the baking dish.
After you’ve rolled all canneloni and placed them into your dish, spoon the rest of your tomato sauce over the top. Seal the dish tightly with tinfoil and bake for about 40 minutes, until the sauce is bubbly and the pasta is soft. You may need to add some water across the top a few times, since the pasta absorbs a lot of moisture from the sauce. Make sure to check every 10 minutes or so if the sauce is dried out, and add water accordingly.
When the canneloni are cooked, remove them from the oven and allow to rest for at least 5 minutes (or as long as it takes to take some pictures and email them to me). To serve, cut across the middle of a few canneloni, and serve two halves side by side on each plate, topped with parmesan cheese and a double serving of I AM THE CANNELONI MASTER!!!
YOU ARE THE CANNELONI MASTER! This was truly, truly delicious. And for the record: even though it says 4 me’s and 3 Marbles up there, both chomped the exact same amount of canneloni! That’s how good it was.
But you hogged all the leftovers, so I think the indication is totally fair!