Sauce Magnusson | Your Blog Description

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

Here's a short video I made of my wife doing the process:

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:

Add it to a bed of lettuce, and put on a basil leaf to make it beautiful!

Mmmm...

Sadly, it doesn't last forever...

But, it's really not so hard to make, so you can always enjoy it later!

Thanks for reading! If you like this recipe, why not subscribe to my facebook page to keep up with my weekly recipes, as well as travel blogging, and my free music, like what you heard in that video. It's called "The Human Wish," and you can download all my songs on SoundCloud.

Red Light Secrets or the Museum of Prostitutes in the Red Light District of Amsterdam is an interesting trip, which gives you some context of what prostitution is actually like in Amsterdam. In a previous post I showed some of the window girls or "Kamers." Of course these sex workers are people too, and usually they didn't consciously make a decision to become a sex-worker. In the museum they provide stories of sex workers and some examples of the rooms they work in.

On the mirror in the room is a chilling tale of how a sex worker came to her position.

"My name is Anna. I come from Poland. I have worked in this room for seven years. Often seven days a week, 12 hours a day. In these seven years I've had I think 25,000 customers. Usually they paid me 50 Euro but sometimes less. If it was really quiet, just 30 Euro. If I calculate what I have earned, I makes me feel sick. All together maybe a million euro. Nearly all that money is gone. Every day I paid 150 euro roomrent. Nearly all the money that was left went to the man who brought me to Amsterdam. If I had known this, I would never have gone with him. He told me he had a job for me in a hotel. He took my passport and I had to give him all the money I earned. He would keep it for me, but all that money is gone. I was afraid of him. He was aggressive and he threatened to tell my family what I was doing.

After four years, he was arrested for trafficking.

I stayed in prostitution, what else could I do? I still work, but now in a different room.

I saved money during the last years. If I have enough money, I'm going back to Poland.

The rooms are pretty shoddy.

At least there's a bidet. There is an example of an upscale room too.

I guess these brothels exist in Amsterdam, offering better accommodation for wealthier clientele.

Also they show some bdsm type stuff, and a video about how older prostitutes like to get into it, since they don't have to have sex actually.

Also there is a simulated experience of what it's like to be behind the window, as people walk by to gawk.

It's a video, but looks sort of real.

Creepy guy... I wonder if it's an actor?

Thanks! If you enjoyed my post, please like me on Facebook or sign up for my newsletter!
Sauce

This last April my wife and I were lucky to visit Amsterdam for a week. One of the great things to enjoy while there is a trip through the Amsterdam canals. A boat ride was offered as part of the Hollandpass, which we took with great expectations. The boat ride begins up by the central station. This was a quite chilly day in early April, and we had to wait in line for a boat to arrive to board. Here's central station: