Enlightened Cannelloni

Cannelloni lovers unite! I have never been able to resist cannelloni on any menu. This is way different than your typical cannelloni, however. These have a very light feel to them and you can taste every single ingredient. Just a few notes first: Your noodles may tear when you remove them from the boiling water. That’s ok. Just roll as you see fit and use any broken pieces to patch the tops. I recently had something like this at a restaurant and it was completely made up of patches of noodles. I thought it made it very rustic and made it look more like it was made from scratch. However, if you enjoy trying to stuff tubes of pasta, go for it. You may also have some scraps of noodles left over. Save those and toss with a hearty sauce and you’ve got another dinner. This is very much an ‘it’s great, no matter how you make it’ dish, so please feel free to change up anything.

Ingredients (makes about 15 cannelloni-5 servings of 3 rolls each):

Filling:

1 (12 ounce) package Italian style turkey or chicken sausage, removed from casing and broken up if needed or cut into a small dice if not in a casing

2 garlic cloves, minced

¼ cup onion, finely chopped

½ of a 15 ounce bag of frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry (you could just one square box, if you would like)

1 (15 ounce) container part skim ricotta

¼ cup grated parmesan

Salt and black pepper to taste

Noodles:

One package ‘oven-ready’ lasagna sheets (the ones I found are perfect-about 7 inches long by 3 ½ inches wide) or you could use 15 cannelloni shells.  

Sauce:

1 (15 ounce) can diced tomatoes (with liquid)

1 (14.5 ounce) can tomato sauce

2 teaspoons Italian seasoning

¼  cup half and half

Salt and pepper to taste

Garnish:

About 1 cup of shredded or shaved parmesan

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Brown the sausage in a skillet (you may want to add a smidge of olive oil to help it along). Add in the garlic and onions-cook on medium until the garlic and onions are fragrant, but not brown. Add in the spinach. Cook for 5 minutes. Remove the skillet from heat and transfer the sausage mixture into a bowl. Mix in the ricotta and parmesan and then add salt and pepper to taste.

Spray two large, shallow, casserole dishes with cooking spray (or use two 13x9 baking pans). Dip the noodles in boiling water for about 2 minutes or until just flexible enough to roll. Drain and quickly lay out on wax paper coated with cooking spray. Fill each noodle with about 2-3 Tablespoons of filling each, lengthwise and roll up. Place (seam side down) in the casserole dishes.

Make the sauce by adding cooking the tomatoes, tomato sauce and Italian seasoning in a skillet and cooking on medium 10 minutes. Remove from heat stir in the half and half. Adjust seasoning. Ladle over the stuffed noodles in the casserole dishes. Sprinkle ½ cup of the shaved/shredded parmesan over the top and bake the casserole for 20 minutes. Garnish with the other ½ cup of shredded parmesan.