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…..