Posted by: Swee | September 29, 2006

Spinach and Ricotta Cannelloni

Except that it’s not Canneloni, it’s lasagne sheet rolled into a shape like Cannelloni.

I had some ricotta cheese leftover from the Ricotta Hotcakes I made before. So I was browsing through if I could make anything with the ricotta. So, I recalled that there’s a ricotta spinach recipe in Jamie Oliver’s Jamies Dinner. And then, my dinner is being sorted out. :D


Hrm, the photo turned out surprisingly well. Heh.

Recipe from Jamie’s Dinners (Serves 4)

2 knobs of butter
olive oil
2 cloves garlic, peeled and finely sliced
a large handful of fresh majoram or oregano, roughly chopped
1/2 of a nutmeg, grated
8 large handful 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 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 white sauce
1 x 500ml tub of creme fraiche
3 anchovies, finely chopped
2 handfuls of freshly grated Parmesan Cheese

WOW, thats’ one heck load of ingredients. Tell you what, my version would be like this …

2 knobs of butter
olive oil
2 cloves garlic, peeled and finely sliced
a large handful of fresh majoram or oregano, roughly chopped
1/2 of a nutmeg, grated
8 large handful of spinach, thoroughly washed
*frozen spinach used*
a handful of fresh basil, stalks chopped, leaves ripped
2 x 400g tins of good quality plum tomatoes, chopped
sea salt and ground black pepper
a pinch of sugar
400g crumbly ricotta cheese
2 handfuls of freshly grated Parmesan Cheese
16 cannelloni tubes *lasagne sheet rolled like cannelloni*
200g mozzarella, broken up

For white sauce
1 x 500ml tub of creme fraiche
3 anchovies, finely chopped
2 handfuls of freshly grated Parmesan Cheese

instant cheese sauce ;)

Preheat oven to 180 C. Boil water with some salt, add in lasagne sheet and boil for about 8 minutes. Remove from water when done and just drain it with cold water to stop the cooking. Heat pan with oil then add in one of the garlic cloves and majoram or oregano. When garlic is soft, add in spinach. In my case, I used frozen spinach. So I just thawed it in the microwave for a couple of minutes, then stir into the garlic & oregano on the pan. Leave to cool. Then make the tomato base sauce as you wish. For me, heat the pan with oil and garlic, added in tomato paste and water, some pepper and oregano as well. If you wanna add basil, go ahead. While the sauce is cooking, make the ricotta spinach mixture.

Add in ricotta to the spinach with some parmesan. Make sure that the spinach doesnt have excess water. If you cook from fresh spinach, there might be some moisture that you need to squeeze out. So, mix everthing. Then use a piping bag to squeeze into the cannelloni. In my case, I rolled the ricotta spinach mixture in the lasagne. Then, put into the baking tray. Pour the tomato sauce over it.

For the white sauce, Jamie’s way, mix together creme fraiche, anchovies and 2 handfuls of Parmesan with a little salt and pepper, then loosen with a little water until you can spoon it over cannelloni. My way, well, I used a instant cheese sauce where I just added milk and water and boiled to thickening consistency. Then pour into the baking tray, spinkle some Parmesan and Mozzarella and bake for about 20-25 minutes until golden and bubbling.

Bon apetit ;)

Responses

lovely :)

Hey Swee,

Have you tried vanilla, hedgehog or caramel slices ? There are other variants but these are staples.

They’re dubiously proclaimed as Aussie sweets and are ubiquitous around Aussie cafes, I absolutely adore the latter as it packs a serious sweet punch (akin to a Krispy Kreme hit). Vanilla and hedgehog’s milder on the insulin levels but they’re equally as lovely.

I’ve never seen them in KL so I’ll have to arm myself with the respective recipes.

I really like the idea of using lasagna sheets rolled up to look like canneloni. saves me from buying all the different types of pasta and leaving them to rot in the pantry.

Great job too at rebelling against the chefs. gIVE it to ‘em!! Thats a mountain of ingredients…

Apologies for the late response….:)….BUT can you explain exactly HOW you use the lasagna sheet to look like canneloni? Do you cut it and roll it into individual rolls or is there some other trick?

Thanks heaps,
Megan :)

HI Megan, I first cook the lasagne sheet so it’s pliable. Then just lay 1 sheet , put some fillings inside and roll it into a cylinder shape. Then arrange them onto a baking dish and voila !

I will give this one a try, my wife and I are always looking for new vegetarian recipes and this one looks great.

I just tried it your way - and it was fab!!! Thanks :-)

Leave a response

Your response:

Categories