First up, sorry for the lack of picture on this one, but we were hungry. Ok, so actually we forgot to get the camera out after I'd cooked and concentrated on filling our faces instead.
We have been getting quite a few squash from the allotment recently and my usual response to is to throw them in a veggie risotto. Bored with that idea, I decided to come up with something entirely new and did a bit of a make it up as you go along thing to get there. Here's the idea...
Ingredients:
- 1 Squash (from the allotment)
- A couple of handfuls of Spinach (from the allotment)
- A handful of grated parmesan (our is local from West Sussex)
- A couple of knobs of butter
- Garlic (from the allotment)
- A home made sheet of fresh pasta
- Large tin of chopped tomatoes
- Red wine vinegar
- Fresh basil
- Salt and pepper
Method:
As if you're making mashed potato, boil the squash for 15 minutes or so in water.
Make a tomato sauce by heating the chopped tomatoes with chopped basil stirred in. Add salt, pepper and a dash of red wine vinegar to taste. Reduce this mixture down until you have a rich tomato sauce.
In the mean time, heat some oil and melt a knob of butter in a frying pan. Add the garlic to the pan and start to cook. Wilt the spinach in the pan. When done, chop the spinach.
Mash the squash with a knob of butter, adding salt+pepper to taste. Whip in the parmesan while still hot then stir in the spinach. This forms the filling for the cannelloni.
Roll out your pasta sheet (or use fresh lasagne sheets if you can get them, or even dried ready made cannelloni if you must). Place a good line of the filling across the width of the pasta sheet, say a heaped desert spoonful, depending on how wide the pasta is. Roll the end around the filling so you end up with cannelloni the size of a decent sausage. Cut that one off the sheet and repeat until you've run out of filling (or pasta).
Pour a little of the tomato mixture into a lasagne type dish. Then add all of the cannelloni tubes on top. Pour over the remaining tomato mixture. You can now add anything else you want to the topping, such as more basil, cheese, or maybe use a mix of white and tomato sauce. When assembled, put into the oven on about 200c, gas mark 5, for around 15-20 minutes.
When done, serve with garlic bread and or a simple green salad. Lovely!
