cheese-filled cannelloni

The other day I found a packet of dry cannelloni tubes in the pantry, & decided we’d have cannelloni for tea. The sauce was going to be easy: we’re slowly working through the packets of tomato sauce that I froze last summer, so out came one of those, plus there was a 450g packet of beef mince in the freezer. So I turned the oven to heat to 180 C and next, once the meat was defrosted (microwaves are a wonderful invention) I browned it in a frying pan over medium heat, stirring to break it up, & then added a packet of sauce & left it to simmer very gently. But what to put in the tubes of pasta?

In the fridge were eggs, a block of parmesan cheese, and 250g tubs of ricotta cheese & sour cream. I emptied the 2 tubs into a bowl & beat them together with a wooden spoon, before beating in the egg and some grated parmesan. Next I chopped together fresh parsley, basil mint (because I still don’t have any basil) and lemon thyme & mixed that into the cheese mixture. I used a teaspoon to fill the pasta tubes, standing each on its end to do this. In retrospect I could have used a piping bag, but oh well…

I spooned a little of the sauce over the base of an oblong casserole dish, then arranged a layer of filled cannelloni over the top. More sauce on the pasta, and then the next layer of cheese-filled tubes, and finally the rest of the sauce. Because I felt like a cheese overload I sprinkled a little more parmesan over the top before putting the dish into the oven – it took about 35 minutes to cook, by which time the sauce was bubbling & the cheese golden. (You can check that it’s cooked by pushing a skewer into the pasta – there should be very little resistance.)

We had it with salad & some steamed broccoli from the garden – there was plenty for 4 with leftovers for lunch the next day.

 

a very nice cheesecake

This is a dessert I make quite often when we’re having friends over for dinner. It’s quick to make, requires no baking, & if you make it with ‘lite’ dairy products you can almost kid yourself it’s healthy 🙂 This recipe’s our current favourite variation on the original Edmond’s Cookbook version.

First, crush your biscuits** – for this version I use chocolate thins. (You can either put them in the blender until you get coarse crumbs, or put them in a reasonably sturdy plastic bag & beat them with a rolling pin; this can be quite cathartic.) Then mix in 70g melted butter & press the crumb crust into a 20cm-diameter dish. These days I use a spring-form pan – while it’s non-stick I still line the base with baking paper – but a ceramic pie-dish served us well for years. Put that in the fridge to chill & set while you make the filling.

Wipe the blender to get rid of the worst remaining crumbs & then into it put: 250g cream cheese (lite if you prefer); 250g sour cream (ditto); 1/4c white sugar; and the juice & zest of an orange (because this goes particularly well with the chocolate base. But you could use a lemon or lime instead). Blend till smooth.

Soften 4tsp gelatine in a couple of Tblsp water, & then briefly microwave to dissolve. Blend that into the cream mix & pour the whole lot into the prepared tin. At this point I sometimes add blueberries (though not with the chocolate version) or other fruit.

Chill till set, & serve 🙂

** If using plain biscuits (eg wine biscuits), then some crumbed macadamia nuts would be nice in the crust too.

sweet pepper sauce & handmade cheese-&-herb ravioli

I am soooo enjoying being on holiday 🙂 And my idea of being on holiday includes (among other fun activities) cooking lots of Nice Things. This morning I biked down to the Farmers’ Market, but – because I knew I’d be coming home with blueberries – before I left I mixed a brioche dough & left it to rise. And when I got back I used it to make blueberry brioche (which I will probably write about in another post).

Also in the saddlebags were beetroot, apple juice, avocados, macadamia nuts, free-range eggs, and a whole lot of lovely long sweet red peppers, courtesy of the lovely folk at the Southern Belle Orchard booth. I had designs on those peppers! Some of them I packed away in the fridge, but I kept 4 big ones aside. After lunch (mmmm, nommilicious brioche!) I turned them into a lovely, slightly spicey sauce:

• Slice a brown & a red onion thinly & start them frying gently in a heavy pan. (It wouldn’t actually matter which kind you used; I just grabbed what was there.)
• Peel & chop the cloves from a couple of small heads of garlic & add them to the pan.
• Remove the seeds from the peppers (you could use ordinary capsicums too) and slice the flesh; add that to the pan as well.
• At this point I looked at our excess of zucchini, and then chopped 3 of them into small dice & popped them in the pan with everything else.
• Add 1 tsp of paprika – the rich red smoked kind if you have it (which I do, cos my friend Annette gave me some), 1/4 tsp chili powder (more if you like it hot), & salt to taste, before pouring in 500 ml chicken stock (I didn’t have vege stock available). Pop a lid on the pan and simmer the mix gently for about 30 mins, & then a further 30 mins with the lid off if you want to thicken the sauce.
• Finally, use a stick blender or food processor to process to a smooth-ish puree.

Now, I’d started off making the sauce without a firm idea of what to use it with, but while it was cooking (& I was doing my embroidery) I decided it would go rather nicely with cheese-&-herb ravioli. So I mixed up a batch of pasta dough (3 c flour, 6 of those free-range eggs, a couple of Tbsp of olive oil, all kneaded together & then – when I needed it – rolled out into thin sheets), & then dealt with the filling. Again, you could vary this according to what you’ve got in the fridge.

• Beat together 250 g ricotta cheese and 250 g cream cheese, plus however much grated parmesan you feel like using.
• Crush 2-3 cloves of garlic and add that to the cheese, along with about a cup of finely chopped herbs: I used parsley, basil, marjoram, lemon thyme, chives, & garlic chives.
• Fry 3-4 rashers of bacon, chop finely, & stir into the cheese/herb mix, along with the zest of a lemon & juice to taste.
• Finally, mix in an egg – it helps hold everything together when cooked.
• Take a sheet of pasta (I rolled this one sheet at a time) & place teaspoonfuls of the filling on half the sheet, spacing them about 3 cm apart.
• Fold the other half of the sheet over the top & press down around each little mound of filling, before cutting into ravioli. Place to dry on baking paper on a cake rack & then roll your next pasta sheet. That amount of dough & filling gave me about 4 dozen  5 dozen** ravioli.

When ready to eat, bring a large pot of lightly-salted water to the boil, drop in the pasta, & cook 3-4 minutes or till they’re al dente. Heat the sauce through while the ravioli cook. I’m just about to go & do that now. And we’re going to have it with a nice bottle of red wine, all the way from Italy!

** make that 5 dozen – I counted as I popped them into the pot 🙂

lunch for nana’s birthday

My mother-in-law turned 85 yesterday, & tomorrow we’ll be having lunch with her & Poppa. While they’re both getting on now (Poppa is 93 & very frail), they’re still in their own home & enjoy pottering in the garden, watching sport on TV, & cooking for themselves & any visitors they might have (ell, these days Nana does most of the cooking). But tomorrow, I’m providing the birthday lunch.

I had to think carefully about what to cook, because Poppa prefers soft food these days. In the end, I decided on a smoked salmon roulade – because she loves fish, with new potatoes, steamed brocolli florets, & lemon thyme hollandaise. And a chocolate mousse to follow (they both love puddings 🙂 ).

Some salmon roulade recipes are basically a cream cheese mix rolled in strips of smoked salmon, but I knew neither of the old people would enjoy that version. So I made a thick bechamel sauce, starting by melting 50g of butter & stirring in about 1/2 c of plain flour. You need to stir this for a minute or so once the flour & butter are combined, over a gentle heat, as the flavour of the sauce is much better. Then, with the pan still on the heat, whisk in 500ml milk – I usually do this a bit at a time as it seems to minimise the lumps – & continue to stir until it’s very thick. Remove the pan from the stove, season the sauce, & let it cool for about 5 minutes before beating in 4 egg yolks. Finally, beat the egg whites until stiff & dry, & fold them into the mix before pouring it into a swiss roll tin that’s been lined with baking paper, & bake at 180 degree C until golden & set. After which, turn the sponge out onto foil or baking paper on a cake rack, & let it cool. Which is what’s happening at the moment 🙂

Then I’m going to spread the top of the sponge – leaving an inch or so at one short end – with cream cheese that’s had a cup or so of finely chopped herbs blended into it: chives, garlic chives, lemon thyme, & parsley. And on top of that will go 200g of flaked smoked salmon. Next I’ll roll it tightly, beginning from the other short end & using the baking paper to help, put it on a pretty dish, & refrigerate until an hour or so before lunch, as I think it’ll be nicer at room temperature.

The mousse? That’s already in little glass serving dishes in the fridge. I bought a 520g block of Whitakers 72% dark ghana chocolate, when I did the grocery shopping this morning, & melted about 400g in a glass bowl in the microwave. (I know the books all say this should be done over hot water, but I find the microwave works just fine – you just have to be careful to heat in short bursts & stir well each time.) Into the molten chocolate I stirred 50g of butter, a couple of tablespoons of Grand Marnier, and about 100ml of cream, before stirring in the yolks of 4 eggs. The final step was to fold the stiffly beaten egg whites through the mix, before dividing it between the serving dishes & hiding them in the fridge to set.

And warning the husband Not to Touch, or else There’ll Be Trouble!

herbs, chicken & cheese

Even a fast cycle ride home after work (22 minutes door-to-door) didn’t quite get rid of the stress & annoyance of a rather trying day. So I decided to take it out on dinner. Literally.

You see, I’d been mulling over thoughts on what to do with the 3 boneless chicken breasts I’d got out to defrost that morning. I suppose you could call the chosen outcome, ‘chicken olives’ (if you remember ‘beef olives’, you’ll know what I mean).

First, I picked a handful of herbs from my garden: lemon thyme, marjoram, parsley, young spring onions & a couple of leaves of sage. These I chopped finely & put in a bowl together with 250g cream cheese (you could use the ‘lite’ version if you wanted to feel virtuous), some grated parmesan, and an egg to bind it all together. Once that was thoroughly mixed I added 3 rashers of chopped bacon that I’d fried gently while dealing with the herbs, & mixed again. The combo smelled – & tasted! – delicious.

Next, the anti-stress part: after removing the fat from the chicken I sliced each breast into 2 schnitzels – and then beat them with my trusty wooden rolling pin until they were about 5mm thick and twice their original area. After which I was definitely feeling better 🙂 After putting a heaping table-spoon of the herb-&-cheese mix onto each schnitzel, I rolled the meat around the filling. My original intention had been to sear them in the pan I’d cooked the bacon in, with all those lovely drippings** and brown crunchy bits 🙂 But I could see that this would probably lead to my chicken rolls falling apart, or the filling oozing out, so I simply put each one into a casserole dish as I rolled them.

The final step was to pour some homemade pasta sauce, full of tomatoes & basil & garlic & red pepper, & seasoned with smoky paprika, over the top of the rolls & pop them in the oven at 180 degrees C. I basted them with the sauce a couple of times while they cooked, which took around 45 minutes. And we ate them with hedgehog potatoes & steamed brocolli.

Yes, Annette, I know you said to serve the sauce on the side 🙂 Maybe next time!

** Incidentally the drippings did not go to waste, for there was filling over. Enough filling to make a lovely toasted sandwich, using wholemeal bread (also very virtuous, 🙂 ) and fried in the drippings, as a starter to share between the 3 of us.