What a fun day today has been!  Victor spent the day outside – at the garden store, planting tomatoes, peppers, herbs, and all those bulbs he got from Holland…  General fun yard stuff.  I spent the day being Cinderella, doing laundry, cleaning the kitchen floor, cooking dinner…

It was a bit of role reversal.  Usually I work Saturday and Victor does the laundry, cleans the house… does the basic chores.  It’s not that I don’t do housework, but, for example, we had our vacuum cleaner for two years and one day I decided to do a bit of cleaning.  I had to ask him how to turn it on!  What can I say?!?

So…  laundry properly sorted, washed, dried, and put away (I actually do know how to do all of these things.  Really.) I started on dinner.  Chicken Cannelloni.

Back in the Dark Ages when I worked at Pirro’s in San Francisco, we had a great cannelloni on the menu.  I decided to take that old concept and update it a bit.

Chicken Cannelloni

Sauce

  • 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
  • 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
  • 2 cups whole milk
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
  • Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
  • 1 cup finely grated Romano or Parmesan

Melt butter in a heavy saucepan over moderately low heat. Whisk in flour and cook about 2 minutes.Whisk in milk and bring to a boil. Reduce heat then whisk in salt, pepper, and nutmeg. Remove from heat and whisk in cheese.

Filling

  • 2 chicken breasts, minced in a food processor
  • 10 sun-dried tomatoes, minced
  • 1 1/2 cups finely grated parmesan cheese
  • 1 lb ricotta
  • 1 egg
  • 1/2 tsp sage
  • 1/2 tsp pepper
  • 6 “no-cook” lasagne sheets

Cook lasagne noodles in a wide pan a few at a time.  Place in a bowl of ice water to cool and stop cooking.

Cook minced chicken breasts in a pat of butter, breaking it up as much as possible.  Cool.

Mix chicken with sun-dried tomatoes, parmesan, ricotta, egg, sage, and pepper.  Set aside.

To assemble

Cut lasagne sheets in half to make 2 squares from each.

Butter 9×13 casserole dish and cover bottom with 1/3 of the cream sauce.

Place filling in a row along top side of square and roll.  Place seam-side down in dish.  Repeat with remaining pasta.

Cover with remaining 2/3 sauce.  Cover with foil and bake at 350° for about an hour.

I served them with a side of arugula sauteed in a splash of olive oil, salt & pepper.

The cannelloni we made at Pirro’s had a much finer-consistency filling.  It really was all ground together and served in our all-purpose red sauce.  This had a bit more texture, a few less ingredients, and served with a classic white cheese sauce.  While I have some fond memories of that cannelloni, I liked this one better.  We both cleaned our plates.

And then I made fresh Blackberry Ice Cream.

It’s in the freezer right now…..