Recipe Sweet Chestnut & Spinach Cannelloni

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

So the cream cheese challenge. A bit of a problem when you're both dieting and watching your fat intake, particularly saturated fats.

I used my Vitamix Blender for this, but if you're not dairy free, or don't have a suitable blender you could use so bought cream cheese.

I had previously peeled, cooked & frozen my sweet chestnuts by scoring them, boiling for 10 minutes and draining, then baking for 20 minutes (others may call it roasting, but I didn't add any oils, so I'm sticking with baking). Once cool enough to handle they were peeled (shell and membrane). There wasn't much need to chop them up at this stage because they'd crumbled.

If you're not on a diet, and have a dairy-free cheese you like, you might want to top the cannelloni with that prior to baking.

Ingredients
100g raw cashew nuts, soaked overnight & drained
½ brown onion,
100g tiny capers
3 cloves garlic, minced
300g leaf spinach, thawed and pressed dry
300g sweet chestnuts, cooked and chopped roughly
18 cannelloni shells
1 jar of tomato pasta sauce of choice

Method

1. Puree the onion, then add the cashew nuts and blend until the mixture is totally smooth. Pour into a suitable mixing bowl.
2. Mix in the capers, garlic, leaf spinach and sweet chestnuts with the onion cashew mixture. Taste and adjust seasoning if you think necessary. I didn't.
3. Now the messy, fun bit. Stuff the cannelloni shells with the filling.
4. In a clean mixing bowl, mix the tomato pasta sauce with half a jar of water.
5. This next bit depends on the size of your oven dish. Depending on how many dishes you need to use, you'll want to add a layer of the pasta sauce to the bottom, then line the cannelloni up in the dish and top them off with the remaining pasta sauce, so they are completely covered. If you're using 1 big dish, then half the sauce on the bottom, but if you're using 3 dishes like me you'll want ⅙th of the sauce on the bottom of each of the 3 dishes. You get the idea.
6. Cook in a preheated oven at 180°C for 30 minutes (ish).

 

[msmofet]

Do you cook/boil the cannelloni shells before stuffing? Or do you stuff them uncooked?

 

[medtran49]

Do you cook/boil the cannelloni shells before stuffing? Or do you stuff them uncooked?

They look at least partially cooked, but SatNav can answer definitively.

I don't buy the cannelloni shells anymore. I either use the no boil lasagna sheets soaked in hot water so they can be rolled or make crepes and just fold them up.

I do love the idea of using the cashew/onion cheese. Sounds really good!

 

[SandwichShortOfAPicnic]

Agree the blitzing of the cashews and the onion sounds a great move.

 

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

Do you cook/boil the cannelloni shells before stuffing? Or do you stuff them uncooked?

No cooking of the shells. The directions on the packet just said stuff. They deal with cooking in the oven, hence the half jar of water in with the sauce. We cook pasta bakes the same way. No precooking needed.

This is the cannelloni we buy (the only one in the shop)
» Cannelloni

 

[msmofet]

No cooking of the shells. The directions on the packet just said stuff. They deal with cooking in the oven, hence the half jar of water in with the sauce. We cook pasta bakes the same way. No precooking needed.

This is the cannelloni we buy (the only one in the shop)
» Cannelloni

Uncooked makes it easier to stuff using a pastry bag or zip top bag with corned cut off.
I buy the oven ready lasagna noodles. I hate cooking them. Always stuck together.