Pumpkin and Ricotta Cannelloni
April 7, 2007 mains, vegetarian
Being the carnivore that I am it was great to really feel the vego vibe just in time for no flesh day – Good Friday.
My mother was never very impressed with my lack of respect for this tradition… but this year I observed it by having dinner with a vego. I must report that Ann is as lovely as ever and we agree that Veronica Mars rocks. I always wanted to be a teenage detective.
Serves: 4
Prep/ cook time: allow 2 hours or so of unattentive cooking with moments of activity
Ingredients:
1 tablespoon of olive oil for the baking dish
Half a packet of cannelloni tubes (125g)
Filling
200g of ricotta
1kg of pumpkin
15 sprigs of thyme
A decent pinch of nutmeg
1 egg
Tomato sauce
1 clove of garlic finely chopped
1 bay leaf
1 can of diced tomato
1 ½ tablespoons of tomato paste
A big big handful of chopped basil
Grated cheddar and slices of boccinchini to serve
Consider serving with a white cheese sauce as an alternative to tomato sauce.
1. Cut up the pumpkin and roast in a warm oven until soft and mushy.
2. Make the tomato sauce by sautéing the garlic for a minute before adding the bay leaf, canned tomato and tomato paste. After simmering for 30 minutes or so add the basil and continue to cook for 10 – 20 minutes or so. A good Napolitano sauce should cook for hours and hours… so look one up and follow that – but I think you can get some really nice flavors after around 45 minutes. Remember you will roast it for a bit too so ensure it is nice and moist and add some veggie stock if you need to.
3. As the cooked pumpkin cools a little cook the cannelloni. Be sure to use plenty of water and add a little oil to the water as it is important that the tubes do not stick together. You also need to make sure they do not tear and are quite strong. For this reason don’t quite cook them until they are ready and remember that they can finish cooking through in the oven which will mean absorbing some liquid from the tomato sauce on top and stuffing.
4. After allowing the pumpkin to cool a little mix with the ricotta, egg and thyme leaves. It is good to mix the ingredients so that they are fairly well combined, but not entirely merged so that each bite has a different intensity of the flavors.
5. Spoon mixture into the cannelloni tubes and lay into the olive oil lined trey.
6. Top with tomato mixture, cheddar, boccinchini and wack into a 180 degree oven for around 20 minutes or so with foil over the cannelloni before removing it and cooking for another 15 minutes so that the cheese browns.