When I first became vegetarian I cooked cannelloni to death as it was a simple meal that everyone seemed to enjoy, until everyone at home became a bit tired of eating it. Stuffing the pre-bought tubes was the hardest part of preparing the meal and the mess involved in my previous small kitchen could make me grumpy at times. So I hadn't gotten around to trying a vegan cannelloni yet.
Keira's recipe and step by step instructions appealed to me as there was none of this tube stuffing to be dealt with. Sure there was pasta to be made instead, but how hard could that be? In fact, making the dough wasn't that bad - I might have been a little worried about how firm the dough was initially but after giving it a good knead for 10 minutes it seemed to be a nice consistency.
Then came the rolling. Oh dear!!! It started off well however I had a bit a trouble getting my sheets to be the same size. After placing the mixture in the sheets and rolling them up I had another small heart failure. There was NO WAY these tubes were going to fit in my baking dish, I must have been a little over zealous with the rolling pin as they turned out to be enormous in length. 6 of my 8 tubes went into the dish (the wrong way around) and another small dish was prepared quickly to bake the remaining 2 tubes which were cut in half to fit. Before placing the large baking dish into the oven I cut the 6 tubes down the middle to make them an easier size to manage.
The end result was sensational (although the photo doesn't do it justice) and Keira was totally right in advising me that it's worth making your own pasta because that was the best cannelloni that has come out of my kitchen! I'll definitely make this again one day...
The only differences made to Keira's recipe were adding a crushed garlic clove to the filling, subbing fresh spinach leaves for the kale and my sauce used a bottle of tomato passata rather than fresh tomatoes and also had some basil added to it.
I served this with a simple side salad of cos lettuce, avocado, tomato, olives and spring onions with a drizzle of balsamic vinegar and some garlic bread.
Yay! you made it. I'm glad you liked it.
ReplyDeleteThe trick with the sheets is to try to make them the same width as your baking tray, but 2 or 3 times the length. Its hard though, and mine often don't quite fit right :)
I definitely liked it - so did hubby and son when they had theirs later.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the rolling tips Keira. It has to get easier second time around!!!