Italian Sausage, Spinach, and Ricotta Cannelloni

It is very rare that I watch a cooking show and say, "I have to make that".  The cannelloni that I saw on Kelsey's Essentials looked so good and fun to make that I had to try it.   The dish certainly does not disappoint.  Plus, it's fun to make.  Who wouldn't like rolling what are basically Italian enchiladas?  

For a delicious dinner, plus leftovers for lunch, you will need: 

Filling: 

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 medium onion

8 ounces sweet Italian sausage (the bulk sausage from Whole Foods is really good)

1 (10 ounce) box frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry of all liquid

1 (15 ounce) container of ricotta cheese

1 1/2 cups of finely grated Parmesan cheese

3 eggs

salt and pepper

Tomato Sauce:

1/4 cup olive oil

1 medium yellow onion

3 garlic cloves

3 tablespoons fresh basil (or 1 tablespoon of dried basil)

2 (28 ounce) cans diced tomatoes

salt and pepper

Fresh Pasta Dough:

4 large eggs

1 tbs water

3 1/2 cups sifted all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp salt

We made twice as much dough as needed for the cannelloni, so we ended up drying the second half of the batch.  Feel free to cut the dough recipe in half.  Stay tuned for the outcome of the dried pasta.

First things first, make the sauce.  You could buy a jar of sauce, but really, this is super simple and really good.  Dice the onion and garlic.  Heat the olive oil in a medium stock pot over medium heat.  Saute the onion and garlic until golden brown, then add the basil and cook for about 5 more minutes.   

 

Next, just add the tomatoes, season with salt and pepper, and simmer for about 20 minutes.    

Now this part gets a bit messy if you are not careful.  Grab a potato masher and break up the tomatoes to the desired consistency.  I was really careful and I still ended up cleaning sauce off the walls.  Make sure to taste the sauce and adjust the seasoning if needed.  Then place to the side to use later.

For the filling, dice the onion and saute with the olive oil over medium heat until soft and fragrant.

Add the sausage and break up into smaller pieces with a wooden spoon.

Cook the sausage until golden brown, then set aside and allow to cool.

Nobody wants soggy cannelloni, so make sure that you really squeeze the liquid out of the spinach well.  Then mix in a bowl with the ricotta, Parmesan cheese, and eggs.  

Once the sausage and onions cool slightly, add them to the mix and season with salt and pepper.  This is probably the time where you will want to preheat the oven to 400 degrees and place a pot of salted boiling water on the stove.

My Mother-in-law said that "it's odd" that I refer to my wife as "the Wife" in the blog...  I suppose that I can stop, but I get a kick out of it.  Anyways, my wonderful wife, Michelle, made the pasta for tonight's meal.  You can learn all about making fresh pasta dough in our earlier post. 

Instead of running the dough through the cutter, we cut sheets by hand for the cannelloni.  Just roll out the dough with the pasta press. 

Then fold the dough in sheets that are about 6x7.  Then just cut off the ends to make the sheets.

Next, drop the sheets into salted boiling water and cook for just a minute.  Then remove from the water and run under cold water to stop the cooking process.  You'll also want to unfold the sheets if they got clumped up, then lay flat.

Now the fun part, take one sheet, and place about 6 tablespoons of the mixture in the middle, leave some space on the ends with no filling.

Roll the sheets carefully, and not too tight.  We all remember the Seinfeld episode about what happens when you roll food too tightly.  If you don't remember the episode, you should find it.  Classic.

Not bad for my first try.

Place two cups of the sauce on the bottom of a 9x13 casserole dish.  Then just start to line up the cannelloni one by one.

It can take a little while, but again, you're playing with food so it's sort of fun rolling these guys up.

Once the dish is full, top with more sauce, probably a couple of more cups.

Leave the ends uncovered with sauce, and drizzle with olive oil so they get nice and browned.  Sprinkle some Parmesan cheese on top to cap it off.

If you think it looks good now, wait until you bake it for 20 minutes in the 400 degree oven.

20 minutes later, everything should be golden brown and super delicious.

Again, this is a big recipe.  We actually had enough for 2 casserole dishes (this is only one of them).  We also had enough dough to dry out half the batch.  This was dinner for 2, and 3 additional lunches from this dish alone.  We still have the second dish in the freezer for another night.  Probably some night when I'm not home to cook for Michelle...