Beef Cannelloni

can·nel·lo·ni

ˌkanlˈōnē/

noun

1. rolls of pasta stuffed with a meat or vegetable mixture.

So last week I continued my new love of stuffed pasta with a new dish, Beef Cannelloni. I was finishing off the “storm” fridge clean-out and had some ground beef and a bag of spinach. So I finally tried this out. This turned out well, and we used the rest of the innards for a lasagna-esque dish over the weekend.

Sorry about the poor quality of the pictures. Despite the hot mess of enchiladas that they appear to be, these actually turned out pretty great. (It was these pictures that made me decide that David is now my official food photographer.)

What I used:

• homemade pasta sheets (eggs, salt, flour and elbow grease)
• ricotta
• spinach
• beef
• onion
• garlic
• seasoning
• bechamel sauce
• parmesan
• red sauce (basic garden marinara from last summer)

What I did:

1. Brown the beef with onion and garlic, set aside.
2. Steam the spinach, and chop roughly.
3. Mix Ricotta together with a beaten egg and cooled beef and spinach,  season.
4. Cook to al dente pasta sheets, cut into squares.
5. In casserole pan add a base layer of tomato sauce.
6. Roll pasta sheets up with filling. Place in pan seam side down.
7. Pour bechamel sauce overtop.
8. Pour red sauce overtop.
9. Add parmesan (I would have added mozzarella as well, but didn’t have any)
10. Bake for 20min at 400F, let set for 10 minutes before serving (I can never do this last part.)

All in all I loved this recipe. I actually had some leftover pasta sheets and filling, and wish I had gone ahead and made one up for the freezer, but eh, live and learn. I got another dinner out of the filling anyway.