recipe 4: mini cannelloni (the Singapore of wisdom teeth removal)

When I went to Singapore several years ago, which was my first stop in Asia, I decided immediately that it was the perfect East-meets-West city. It was a cultural middle ground between Sydney (where I was coming from) and Bangkok (where I was heading). I felt so strongly about this analogy that when I got to Bangkok, I purchased a set of chopsticks, one of which had a tiny spoon on top and one of which had a tiny fork on top. I called them my Singapore chopsticks. East meets West. This is the end of my travel story and this is why I do not write a travel blog. Now, to segue smoothly into how Singapore relates to cannelloni, I've decided that cannelloni is the perfect food for that "twilight" period after wisdom teeth removal when transitioning from a liquid diet back to solids. Liquids meet solids and create "soft." First, some acknowledgments. I know how to make my own tomato sauce and that recipe will be included later. For this creation, the sauce came from here: http://www.lisasdeli.com/. Tristan and I love this place and love their sauce. The inspiration for the recipe came from some Italy travel website where the degrees are in Celsius and the measurements are sometimes, but not always, in liters. Who knows how I stumbled upon this site http://www.italianstay.com/, but I did, and it created the inspiration for making canneloni: http://www.italianstay.com/italyinformation/pasta/cannelloni.htm. And finally, the recipe says to use bechamel sauce but does not tell you how to make bechamel sauce. So I fell back on Tristan's mom's recipe for bechamel sauce and guess what? This was a perfectly delicious creation. We even took pictures. Granted, they are camera phone pictures and not true blog-worthy food photo shoot canvases using a camera with pixel measurements too mind-boggling to comprehend. But alas, baby steps.

MINI CANNELLONI (serves 4)
Ingredients:
-about 3/4 bag of fresh spinach
-2 1/2 c tomato sauce
-1/2 c parmesan (plus extra for sprinkling)
-16 "mini cannelloni" tubes
-approximately 14 oz ricotta cheese
-salt
-crushed garlic, to taste
-4 T butter
-4 T flour
-2 c milk
-1 t nutmeg

Instructions:
1) preheat the oven to 400 degrees
2) boil some water in a big pot with a pinch of salt and cook the cannelloni, following instructions
3) while the water for the cannelloni is boiling, wash the spinach and drain in a collander
4) add the spinach, crushed garlic, and some salt to a separate pot (without extra water) and cook until wilted, stirring constantly
5) remove spinach from pot, remove stalks, and finely chop
6) mix spinach with the ricotta and parmesan and set aside to cool
7) meanwhile, melt the butter in a saucepan, stir in the flour, mix until smooth and cook for a few minutes while stirring but do not allow it to brown
8) slowly add the milk to the butter/flour mixture until smooth and then cook, while stirring until thick
9) stir in the nutmeg
10) grease a baking dish with butter and pour in about a tablespoon of the bechamel sauce, spreading over the bottom
11) fill the cannelloni tubes with the ricotta mixture and place in the baking dish

12) cover the pasta with all of the bechamel sauce and all of the tomato sauce
13) sprinkle with parmesan cheese and bake for 20-25 minutes

14) let the deliciousness cool a little before cutting and serving...