Riccota and Spinach Stuffed Cannelloni

These days I tailor my dinners around what's on sale at the grocery store. Don't get me wrong my Sunshine, but taking care of you (Alexis) and trying to come up with a meal, the mortgage strapping our budget, and me on maternity leave, being cost effective as well as saving on time and labour makes meal preparation a living hell. So I saw a few things on sale and decided I would try this cannelloni. You're right; it's not a quick dish you whip up, but if you do things in steps, you can bring it all together before you're ready to cook.

Alexis, you are a handful, and I can't plan anything that takes longer than fifteen minutes before I have to tend to you in some way. So in choosing what I make this family for dinner, I need to be aware of your needs. Cleaning chicken? Not really a great option unless I'm using legs or breasts - less cleaning. So with this cannelloni, no meat preparation and all done in steps.

Ricotta Spinach Filling

Stuffed and Arranged in Trays

What was on sale? Spinach. Ricotta was still pricey, but you don't need a lot. And I had most of the other ingredients at home. Your spices and herbs make all the difference as well. How did I manage in steps? I prepared the filling the day before. Brought all the pantry ingredients to the kitchen ready for a mad dash to complete as much as I could. I use 'oven ready' pasta which makes all the difference when you're not able to give them your full attention and risk their splitting as you fill them, and just soaking them in a large bowl of cold water is a great prep before baking. I prepped the baking dish. I used a pastry piping bag to fill the cannelloni. I used a canned (gasp) sauce instead of homemade. Come on, when you have a baby to take care of, shortcuts are acceptable. You're not wonder woman, so don't try to bite off more than you can chew. Mom taught me that. Then again, she can whip up a delicious feast in a few hours and make it look like child's play. If she's willing to use shortcuts, who am I to argue?

2 Cans of Sauce

1 Can of Sauce

The most time intensive preparation is stuffing the cannelloni, and as long as you have enough sauce to cover, the rest is super easy. I thought I could get away with one can, but as you can see, it would have been a disaster. The pasta would have dried to a gummy crisp.

Baked - You could see the sour cream holds where the sauce cracks and allows it to become thick and sweet.

I have to admit, when Kayla saw what we were having for dinner she was super excited. I haven't seen her that excited in quite a while. Everyone went back for seconds. Between the three of us, we finished the first tray. I guess this recipe is a keeper.

You just have to trust me when I say this plate contains three cannelloni.

Ricotta Spinach Filling:
1 Tub Riccotta
4 pkgs Frozen Spinach
1/4 cup Parmesan
1 Egg
1/2 tsp Nutmeg
1 tsp Black Pepper (freshly ground)
1 tsp Sea Salt (freshly ground)

Cannelloni:
2 pkgs Cannelloni
2 cans Tomato Sauce
1 cup Sour Cream
5 Garlic Cloves
2 tbsp Oregano
1 tsp Sea Salt
1 tsp Black Pepper (freshly ground)
4 tbsp Olive Oil


Directions (Ricotta Spinach Filling):
Thaw spinach and strain all water.
In a bowl, mix spinach, nutmeg, black pepper and sea salt.
Add ricotta and grated Parmesan and mix well.
Make a well in the middle of the mixture and add the whole egg.
Beat the egg and then incorporate into the mixture.
Refrigerate until required (I did the mixture two days in advance).
When ready to stuff pasta, spoon mixture into a pastry bag with no nozzle attached.

Directions (Cannelloni):
Preheat oven to 350`F.
Fill a big bowl with cold water and soak the cannelloni noodles.
Grease two trays with olive oil.
Spoon enough tomato sauce to coat the trays.
Using the pastry bag, pipe gently into one end of a horizontal cannelloni, making sure your palm covers the other opening. Do not press bag into pasta - this will break the cannelloni.
Place the pasta into the tray.
Repeat this until all cannelloni have been stuffed and they are close (but not touching) in the tray.
Mix sour cream and minced garlic.
Coat the top and sides of all pasta with the sour cream mixture.
Sprinkle trays with salt, pepper and oregano.
Top all pasta with tomato sauce. I add about a half cup of water to each tray to make sure the sauce will get into each little nook to ensures a moist and saucy pasta.
Bake uncovered for 45 minutes.
Turn off the oven and leave it without opening the door until ready to serve.

Blueberry Cake Muffins

My mother has three cookbooks that are my go-to source for any recipe, so when I wanted to make blueberry muffins, I naturally turned to the only one of those books I have at my house. What they had was a blueberry 'cake' muffin recipe. So I tried it once, sent one for my sister who then called and asked where I bought them from. They were that damn good. The shell of an exterior housing a soft cake interior with delicious blueberries, it was amazing.

This weekend I tried it again with my stepdaughter, but this time I used fresh blueberries instead of frozen. I have to admit - in the case of muffins, frozen is best. Maybe it's because blueberries are out of season that the fresh ones lacked in flavour. But for your best bet, I love the Presidents Choice frozen blueberries. You just have to be more careful when you're folding them into the batter, but it's well worth the effort.

As always, I never use real butter in my baking, or I'd bake once a year if at all. Becel works just fine for me in baking. It's what my mother taught me, and to tell you the truth, you can eat baked goods guilt free when you're using heart healthy ingredients. In the same light, I find every recipe book lists way too much sugar for my tastes. I don't know why everyone wants a super sweet... anything. We're not all five years old and there are other flavours I can appreciate. If I eat a blueberry muffin I want to taste blueberries dammit! Not some blue flecked ball of sugar. For this reason, I almost always reduce sugar by a third. This recipe reflects the changes that makes the muffin that I prefer.

BLUEBERRY CAKE MUFFINS (from the 'The New Revised and Updated McCall's Cookbook')
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Flour		2 cups
Sugar		3/4 cup
Milk		1/2 cup
Butter (I use margarine)		1/2 cup
Eggs		2
Baking Powder		1 1/2 tsp
Vanilla Extract		1 tbsp
Salt Blueberries (frozen)		1/4 tsp 1 1/2 cups

Oven & Pans:

1. Preheat oven to 375F.
2. Grease pans with a flour/oil slurry. I find this works best for any baking tins. I recommend a tin of 12 for very large muffins, and adding a tin of 6 for medium sized muffins. The muffins in the picture are a full complement of 18. If you make the 12, they are very impressive and look like the store bought muffins my sister believed them to be.

Preparation:

1. In a bowl sift together flour, baking powder and salt.
2. In a separate bowl, cream together margarine, sugar, eggs and vanilla. Beat on high for approximately 4 minutes.
3. Alternately add flour mixture and milk to the beaten sugar and eggs mixture, blending each completely before adding the next. Begin and end with the flour mixture.
4. Using a spatula, carefully fold in blueberries. You want to get the spatula down to the bottom from the side of the bowl and turn up and out, and then fold into the middle.If you're good, and you should be, you should be able to fold in all berries in 4-5 folds. If you are not careful here, you'll turn your entire batter to a purple-grey mess, and it will bake that way, and look verrrry ugly. You want to keep the colour distinct from the blueberries. Also, a mistake here could waterlog the batter you worked so hard to build. You don't want that happening, do you?
5. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until tops start to brown.

Salmon Steaks

I went to the local ethnic grocery store and saw some beautiful salmon steaks, surprisingly, on sale. I scored four steaks for $12.00. Insane. They were big, beautifully reddish pink, and dark and shiny skin. So salmon it was for dinner.

Now I prefer to cook whole fish, something serving size, like a snapper, which I could stuff and serve with little fuss. I find fillets useless and would only buy portions for making fry fish (note to self: write a post on Guyanese style fry fish). And surprisingly, I don't really make salmon steaks. I think the last time I made salmon steaks was when I was living at my parents. I just don't see it as a cut I would typically prepare at home. But these ones called out to me. It was fate - they were perfect, they were on sale, and I was sure I could do it right.

The worst thing you could do to a great cut of fish (or any flesh, for that matter) is to overcook it. A creature gave up its life to sustain yours - treat it well. I didn't want to assume anything about the cooking temperature and time, so of course I tried to find some information. Going online, I found a forum that referred me to "The Canadian Fish Cookbook" by A Jan Howarth. I'm quoting the quote they posted:

"To cook fresh fish by practically any method, use the timing rule of 5-7 minutes per centimeter (10-12 minutes per inch) of thickness, measured through the thickest part."

This is a great rule of thumb. I must remember this. So I went about preparing the steaks. I always wash fish in lemon-water. There was no need to scale or clean on the steaks, so just a quick wash and rinse and it was good to go.

How to flavour them? I pride myself on seasoning well, but there are some things that are best left alone. In a bowl, I had prepared minced garlic, minced ginger, a slivered and seeded scotch bonnet, lime juice, chopped bandanya, sea salt, ground black pepper, and olive oil. but what good would it do to slather this all over the steaks? The flavour wouldn't permeate and half would fall off the grill. And look at those perfect steaks. No, I drizzled a little olive oil on them, sprinkled some sea salt, some ground black pepper, and by the rule listed above, they needed about 18 minutes in the oven at 450F.

What did I do with the marinade? At about 16 minutes, I took the steaks out and made pseudo-quenelles and placed them on the spinal bone of the steak. Because of the change in cooking time, I put them back in the oven for another 5 minutes; enough to finish the cooking and heat the dressing through. And how was it?

Moist, juicy, flake to the touch of the fork, and delicious.

I served it over rice with a side of collard greens. I'll discuss the collard greens in the next post.

Dressing for Salmon Steaks:
5 Garlic Cloves (pressed through garlic press)
1 tbsp Ginger (fresh, pressed through garlic press)
1 Scotch Bonnet pepper, seeded, halved and slivered

3 Bandanya leaves (chopped fine)
1/2 Lime (juice only)
1 tsp Black Pepper (freshly ground)
1 tsp Sea Salt (freshly ground)
4 tbsp Canola Oil
dresses four steaks

Directions (for Steaks):

Preheat oven to 450`F.
Grease roasting tray.
Place salmon dorsal out, belly together and in almost touching other steak bellies (think flower blossom)
Drizzle olive oil and brush over all steaks
Sprinkle with Sea Salt and fresh cracked Black Pepper
Stick to the guide above and remove fish when ready
If dressing fish, do so quickly and return to oven for an extra five minutes
Salmon does not require resting - can be eaten as soon as removed from the oven