Why spend the effort to squeeze pasta sauce into tediously
tiny cannelloni noodles, you ask? It’s messy, takes extra time and essentially,
cannelloni is the same as spaghetti! It’s true that you probably wouldn’t want
to take the extra time to make cannelloni on a weekday, wasting some of your
precious evening free time spooning pasta sauce into overly fat noodles, but
once-in-a-while, you deserve to make
yourself a treat! Think of that delicious, slightly burnt, baked pasta taste… Delicious! Plus why else would
people all around the world take the effort to stuff food into starches, let it
be cannelloni in Italia, dumplings in China, or pierogy in Kraków, everyone in the world loves to wrap starch
around ground meat with seasonings! In reality, it’s not so much extra work, either!
Around 12 cannelloni noodles can feed 4 people (or two people for
two lunches, for our other power-couples out there!). Each cannelloni stuffing
procedure, really only takes at most a minute, so as long as you’re not
squeamish about getting a little messy, it’s only a little added work!
Here’s the recipe:
~0.5 kg (1 lbs.) of hamburger
~200 g (~1/2 lbs.) of shredded cheese, mozzarella, parmesan
etc.
1 medium onion
½ teaspoon dried
basil
½ teaspoon salt
2 garlic cloves
900 g of pasta sauce (~2 15 oz cans)
1 box of cannelloni, ~ 250 g, 24 total (you won’t use them
all) – try to find the bake only option, so you don’t have to pre-boil them
What you need to do is actually a simple procedure, of first
making the pasta sauce—we went with a simple ground beef-tomato sauce recipe.
What you do is chop the onions and garlic, then sauté them, using the same
large pot for everything (less pots to wash
dudes!!!). Then, once the onions and garlic are slightly soft, you add your
ground beef, browning it. Once it’s browned, drain the excess liquid (cause who spends the money on low-fat,
quality beef, am I right??) and add ~half of your pasta sauce. The other
half will be used to coat your post-stuffed cannoli. You add the salt and dried
basil, then cook for a few minutes, stirring properly. This sauce procedure can
be used for whatever noodles you want to use if you want to skip the whole
cannelloni part, but I recommend forging ever onward!
If you choose to make cannelloni, prepare a baking dish by
coating it with the pasta sauce from the can/ jar. You then start filling
Cannelloni! The simplest way to do it is by spooning the meat sauce into the
cannelloni, making sure the meat meets in the middle (meat meets, you like that right?), otherwise the
Cannelloni can burn. Once your complete, you place the Cannelloni in the baking
dish—congrats, first done! Carry on until you fill the entire dish with one layer.
Multi-layer Cannelloni is dangerous since the noodles can stick together, so
I’d recommend a single layer, but your decision. Once the baking dish is full,
you can add the left over pasta sauce, coating the noodles thoroughly, which
will keep your cannelloni from burning. Then sprinkle your cheese on top of
that, and voilà, you’re ready to bake! Bake the dish for ~30 minutes at ~ 200 oC
(~400 oF). Once done, take
out the dish, snap some photos, publish to facebook, and bask in the thumbs up avalanche!
Or you could just eat it. Post your pasta photos to my
facebook page too!
Out of the oven, fresh and delicious:
You can make a second batch to freeze for later while you wait for the first to cook:
