The Munchies Blog

A while ago, I’d seen a recipe for cannelloni with tomato sauce and spinach (beware, it’s in German) on Chili und Ciabatta. It looked so good that I immediately decided to try it out some day. Well, “some day” turned into today. This dish is very nice, even though it’s maybe a bit too much in the current weather (it’s some 25°C here at the moment). I basically didn’t change anything compared to the original recipe, but I’ll still post a translation.

Cannelloni with Tomato Sauce and Spinach

For the sauce:

• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 large onion (we used three smallish ones), chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic (that’s a guess; Petra doesn’t say how much garlic she used, and we didn’t have any)
• about 1.2 kg canned tomatoes
• 1 tsp dried rosemary (original recipe: 2 fresh rosemary twigs)
• 2 bay leaves
• 2 Tbsp tomato concentrate
• salt and pepper

For the filling:

• 500g frozen spinach leaves
• 150g feta cheese, in small pieces
• 150g ricotta or quark
• about 50g grated Parmesan cheese
• 2 Tbsp fresh mint leaves, chopped (I cheated and used 1 tsp good quality peppermint tea)
• 2 eggs
• 2 Tbsp lightly roasted pine nuts
• salt and pepper

And:

• 16-20 cannellonis (don’t pre-boil them)
• ca 200g Mozzarella cheese (we only had 125g)

Put the spinach somewhere where it won’t take too long to defrost. Roast the pine nuts. Get someone else to grate the Parmesan cheese.

Heat the olive oil in a saucepan. Fry the onion and garlic on medium heat until soft. Stir in tomatoes, herbs and tomato concentrate. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat and let simmer for some 25-30 minutes; the sauce is supposed to thicken (which it didn’t do much in our case — but it was fairly thick to start with). Add salt and pepper to taste. Don’t forget to remove the rosemary (if using fresh twigs) and the bay leaves.

Pre-heat oven to 200°C (that’s 390°F — but for our convection oven, 180°C/355°F was hot enough). Mix hopefully more or less defrosted, roughly chopped spinach with the feta cheese, Parmesan cheese, ricotta, eggs, salt and pepper. Use a tiny teaspoon or a knife to fill the cannellonis with the mixture. Don’t expect your hands to stay clean.

Pour some of the tomato sauce into a shallow baking dish. Spread out the cannelloni (squeezing a bit to make all of them fit doesn’t hurt them either) in the dish. Cover with remaining tomato sauce and the sliced Mozzarella cheese. Maybe sprinkle some grated Parmesan on top.

Bake for about 30-40 minutes. The pasta should be soft enough to be edible, the cheese should be a nice light brown (see the picture). I found that with the oven pre-heated to 200°C and turned down to 180°C when putting the dish into the oven, the cheese was brown after some ten minutes, so I covered the dish with tin foil for the rest of the time.

Supposedly serves four, but in this weather they’d have to be quite hungry, I guess…

Just a quick picture upload, really: Yesterday I tried out the recipe for quiche with red capsicum (aka bell pepper) and feta cheese from basic baking — I’m not posting the recipe itself because I didn’t change anything compared to the original.

I actually didn’t really like it yesterday, but I’d made enough for two days and today it was quite nice. It wasn’t the best of ideas to use the cheap feta cheese though.

Today, I decided to try a variation of my normal chili recipe. This chili is supposed to be soup-like in consistency. It turned out quite nice, just a wee bit too hot. I added hot paprika powder in addition to the spices mentioned, and I think that was a mistake.

Several pages on the Internet mention the use of bittersweet chocolate or unsweetened cocoa powder in chili con carne, so I decided to try that as well. I don’t think the taste is really noticeable in this quantity (might use more next time), but at least I didn’t have any problems getting the chili to taste really nice this time.

About 4-6 servings

• 250g minced beef (soy protein probably works as well)
• 1 capsicum (a.k.a. bell pepper or paprika) — I used a yellow one, but that shouldn’t make a difference
• 1-2 chili peppers — I used a green one
• 1 large red onion
• 3 cloves of garlic
• 1-2 tsp vegetable stock powder
• 500 ml puréed tomatos
• ca. 750 ml (hot) water
• 1 can of kidney beans
• 1 small can of corn (optional — drain and add together with the spices)
• spices to taste (I used salt, pepper, cumin, sweet paprika, cayenne pepper, 2 small dried chopped chilis, allspice, cinnamon, thyme and 1/2 tsp of unsweetened cocoa powder)
• 1 tsp semolina

Wash, cut and seed the capsicum and the chili pepper(s). Peel the onion and cut in half rings. Peel the garlic.

Heat a tablespoon of butter in a medium-sized saucepan on medium heat. Throw in the minced meat. Stir the meat so that it doesn’t clump together. When the meat is done, add the onion and the pressed garlic. Stir and fry this for a few more minutes until the onions start to become transparent. Throw in the capsicum and chili pepper(s), and again stir and fry for a few more minutes.

Add the water, stock powder and puréed tomatos and stir well. When the chili is boiling, turn down the heat a bit and add the spices, then let the chili simmer for some 5-10 minutes. In the meantime, drain and wash the beans. Don’t hurt yourself with the can opener. When the chili has simmered for some 5-10 minutes, add the beans.

Wait some 5 more minutes and add the semolina. This is not strictly necessary, but it does give the chili a nicer consistency. This is also a good time to sample the chili and add any missing spices. Let simmer for some 5 more minutes.

Serve with sour cream, crème fraîche or yoghurt for those who don’t like their chili too hot and with slices of white bread (for example ciabatta, baguette or pide).

I am shamelessly copying this from my own blog where it is posted already. I think it is tasting good enough to have several mentions ;)

Supposedly serves 6 people. If they aren’t starving.

500 gr. minced meat.
2 cloves of garlic.
2 Onions.
500 gr. potatoes.
500 gr. carrots.
500 gr. leeks.
~200-250 ml cream. More works as well ;)
~200 gr. “Schmelzkäse” (Soft meltable cheese, “mjukost” in Swedish).
~ 750ml Vegetable Stock.

Fry (a big pot is a good place) the minced meat, garlic and onions together while cutting the vegetables in smallish pieces.
Once the meat is done, put it all into a big pot and add the vegetable stock. The stock should not cover the vegetables entirely all the way up.
Put to a simmer for 20 minutes, add the cream and the cheese. Simmer for 5 more minutes, and add spices.
Salt, pepper and various herb spices are recommended.

Serve with a bit of sourdough bread if you feel adventurous.