Cannelloni

So, the night before last I attempted a cannelloni in a last minute attempt to do something intersting with mince. I used every pot and pan, as it is rather labour intensive, but a great success! Here's what I did!

Cut up 3 cloves of garlic and two onions - split them between two pans with a little oil in the bottom. Sweat with the lid on until soft.

To one pan add lean beef mince. (This is going to be the filling). Season and fry until all brown. Put the lid on.

Meanwhile, dice a pepper and small (or half a large courgette), add to the other pan. Let soften with the onion.

Make a well in the centre of the mince and let the juice collect, add a beef stockcube and let it dissolve in the juice, also add tomato puree - stir through. Sprinkle with a little flour and put the lid back on.

To the pepper and onion mix add a tin of tomatoes (with salt, pepper and a teaspoon of sugar), and tomato puree. Let this simmer.

So, while these are carrying on in their own little ways - give them a stirr occasionally to make sure they're not misbehaving.

Put an pan of water on to boil, with salt and oil. When it's at a rolling boil, add lasagne sheets (I used about 7). These will take about 7 minutes (depending on what you buy). You only need to cook them unitl they're flexible - they will cook more in the sauce later. Drain them - make sure they don't stick together.

While the water and pasta are boiling, make a while sauce. I use a roux method - flour and butter, cooked out, then cold milk added gradually. Season, take off the head and add cheddar cheese.

So, now all the parts are ready! Put half the tomato sauce in the bottom of a deep baking tray. Take a lasagne sheet, cut in half and spoon the mince mix onto one end. Roll over, so that it makes a tube - pasta on pasta at the end. Lift - carefully - works best using a knife or palate knife. Keep going until the mince and/or pasta are gone, or the dish is full! Then put the remaining tomato sauce on top, try and cover all the pasta. Then pour over the cheese sauce - again, cover as much as you can, but it doesn't matter if tomato sauce shows (just not pasta!).

Then, into a hot oven for 20 mins or so until there's some colour on top. Yum!

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This was great - and a good turn out for a first attempt and without a recipe! I've made a spinach one before with fresh homemade pasta which also works brilliantly.

If having friends over, would be good with a green salad and garlic bread!

Tips! (Oh yes, and I think I've got tips too - except, they're more like my cooking ticks!)

Whenever you use tinned tomatoes, add a squirt of puree, sugar, salt and pepper - this stops them tasting like tin and gets them tasting like tomatoes again!

For vegetarians, or to make mince stretch a bit further - aduki beans are great!

When adding a stock cube to mince (to make it really beefy!) push it to once side, or make a well to get at the juice, crumble the cube into the juice and mix to make it dissolve - this makes it mix better into the mince.