Last weekend my sister and her partner came over for dinner so I had a go at making Jamie’s Spinach and Ricotta Cannelloni. Thoughts – much easier than I thought, it was nice and we all enjoyed it but thought it needed more tomato sauce and a bit more flavour.
So here are pics of the one I made but I’ve added some suggestions to the recipe to make it even better for you!
Notes on these photos…
1. Earlier on this day we played tennis for the first time in about a year so if you’re wondering why my hand looks so deformed its because I could barely hold the knife later in the day… ouch!
2. I asked my other half to take a few photo’s of me cooking for this post and he found it hilarious to take more pictures of my bottom than the food. Silly boy.
Ingredients
- 2 knobs of butter
- olive oil
- 2 cloves of garlic, peeled and finely sliced
- a large handful of fresh oregano, roughly chopped
- ¼ of a nutmeg, grated
- 8 large handfuls of spinach, thoroughly washed
- a handful of fresh basil, stalks chopped, leaves ripped
- 2 x 400g tins of good-quality plum tomatoes, chopped
- sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
- a pinch of sugar
- 400g crumbly ricotta cheese
- 2 handfuls of freshly grated Parmesan cheese
- 16 cannelloni tubes
- 200g mozzarella, broken up
For the white sauce
- 1 x 500ml tub of crème fraîche
- 2 handfuls of freshly grated Parmesan cheese
Recipe
- Preheat the oven to 180ºC/350ºF/gas 4.
- Find a metal baking tray or ovenproof dish that will fit the cannelloni in one layer so it’s nice and snug.
- Take a saucepan, put it on a high heat and add your butter, a drizzle of olive oil, one of the sliced garlic cloves, a handful of marjoram or oregano and the grated nutmeg. By the time the pan is hot the garlic should be soft. (I would add a little splash of white wine here too)
- Put as much spinach as will fit into the pan. Keep turning it over; it will wilt quickly so you will be able to keep adding more spinach until it’s all in. After 5 minutes, put the spinach into a large bowl and leave to cool.
- Place the pan back on the heat, add a little olive oil, the other clove of sliced garlic, your basil stalks and the tomatoes, then fill one of the empty tomato tins with cold water and add this too. Bring to the boil, then turn the heat down, add a pinch of salt and pepper and the sugar, and simmer for about 10 minutes, until you get a loose tomato sauce consistency. Then take the pan off the heat and add the basil leaves. (As mentioned above I would add an extra can of tomato’s and a good squeeze of tomato puree to this!)
- By now the spinach will have cooled down, so squeeze any excess liquid out of it and pour this back into the bowl. Finely chop the spinach and put it back into the bowl. Mix it with the liquid, add the ricotta and a handful of the Parmesan, and then use a piping bag to squeeze the mixture into the cannelloni. (As mentioned above some goats cheese and chopped, roasted butternut squash would work really well in this too)
- Carefully squeeze the filling into the cannelloni tubes so each one is filled right up
- Lay the cannelloni over the tomato sauce in the metal tray
- To make the white sauce, mix together the crème fraîche and the 2 handfuls of Parmesan with a little salt and pepper, then loosen with a little water until you can spoon it over the cannelloni.
- Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with the remaining Parmesan and the mozzarella pieces, and bake for about 20 to 25 minutes until golden and bubbling.
We enjoyed it with salad, warm bread and a good glass of red wine, yummy! In fact writing this post has made tonight’s stir fry seem decidedly boring. What are you guys having for tea?
Have a nice evening,
Chloe x
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ooooh looks so good! I’ve got just the bottle of red to go with that :P
I get a lovely dinner of an M&S sarnie at a table for one on the Transpennine express tonight. Rock & roll huh? x