Cannelloni – Recipe under construction!

I think sometimes I get a bit compulsive about not wasting food. These days, I get it, from the perspective of minimizing shopping trips and using what’s in the house. But even previously I would save little bits of this and that, and I think it became a point of pride for me when I thought of something I could make with these leftovers. How often Hank has said, “There’s nothing in the house for dinner.” And then I’ve built a dish around one item!

I also have been freezing bits and pieces of things: fennel tops for brining pork chops; citrus peels for zest; cubes or crumbs from the heel of a loaf of bread for croutons or bread crumbs. About ten days ago I made pumpkin cappellacci, and I had some pasta dough scraps left. I really could have thrown them out, but instead I worked the scraps together and put them through the pasta rollers and carefully wrapped the sheets for the freezer. Today I made them into cannelloni!

If I were actually writing a cookbook, this would merely be my first draft! It was delicious, but I should have made more béchamel. However it wasn’t easy to determine from my research, because I had no idea how much pasta the sheets in the freezer represented. For the cappellacci, I made a 4-egg pasta dough. Did I use 1 egg’s worth today? No idea. I know for the filling I had ½ pound of loose sausage in the freezer. As I researched recipes, I found that many include some spinach, and we had just gotten some cavolo nero (lacinato kale) in our produce box, so I used that instead, but not sure how much.

Despite the fact that it needs some adjustments, it was delicious! And for what it’s worth, here is an outline of what I did.

Cannelloni — Recipe in Development

Serves 4

A. Pasta dough, rolled out to lasagna-size sheets, about 6 or 8 pieces that are long enough to cut in half for 12-16 cannelloni

Bring a pot of salted water to a boil. Blanch the noodles for a minute. Drain the pasta and spread the noodles in single layers on a clean towel, or even paper towel. 

B. Filling:

• 2 Tablespoons olive oil

• ¼ cup chopped onion

• ¼ teaspoon kosher salt

• ½ pound loose sweet sausage meat

• Fresh ground pepper

• 2 cups chopped cavolo nero (lacinato kale) or spinach, chopped

• 1 cup ricotta

• ¼ cup grated Parmesan

• ⅛ teaspoon ground nutmeg

Heat the olive oil in a medium sauté pan over medium high heat until shimmering and fragrant. Add the onion and salt and sauté until softened. Add the sausage meat and break it up with a spoon as it cooks. Season with pepper. Add the chopped cavolo nero and stir until wilted. Remove to a bowl and set aside. When cool, add the ricotta, Parmesan, and nutmeg and stir to combine. 

C. Béchamel:

• 2 Tablespoons unsalted butter

• 1 bay leaf

• 2½ Tablespoons flour

• 1½ cups milk

• ¼ teaspoon kosher salt

• Generous pinch ground white pepper

• Generous pinch ground nutmeg

In a medium saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the bay leaf and the flour and whisk until the flour is fully combined with the butter. Add the milk in stages, whisking well to incorporate fully. Reduce the heat to medium and allow to thicken, about 5 minutes. Remove the bay leaf, and stir in the salt, white pepper, and nutmeg.

D. Your favorite basic tomato sauce (see my usual version here)

Assembly and baking:

Preheat oven to 425°F.

Spread a small amount of béchamel on the bottom of a 9-x-13-inch baking dish.

Take a pasta noodle and cut in half. Place about 2 tablespoons of filling on one end of one piece of dough, and roll up tightly around the filling. Place in the prepared baking dish seam side down. Repeat until you have used all the filling.

Pour the rest of the béchamel over all the cannelloni. Scatter ¼ cup of grated Parmesan on the cannelloni. Drizzle about ½ a cup of tomato sauce over the top.

Bake for 30 minutes. Allow to cool for at least 15 minutes before serving.