Baked Beef Cannelloni and the KitchenAid mincer

There's no denying that KitchenAid mixers are expensive, and take up a lot of space in the kitchen, but I absolutely adore mine. It's baby pink and was a present from my boyfriend :-) One reason I love it is how versatile it is - you can get all sorts of attachments for it. I've already got the pasta attachment and for Christmas my boyfriend's dad gave me the mincer attachment. It's very easy to use - you just screw it on to the end of the KitchenAid and it's ready to go.

I usually shop in supermarkets for the convenience but I get to our local butcher when I can - a great place called Scott's. They have a catering service which my boyfriend's family uses for parties, particularly on Boxing Day, and they also have a deli and meat counter. I asked for some steak that was suitable to mince, and was given some chuck steak. I'm not sure how much it was by weight; I asked for enough to make a couple of burgers for two people and ended up making three burgers and a portion of beef cannelloni out of it.

Here's the mincer attachment on my KitchenAid. You simply turn it on, feed the steak (sliced into strips) into the top, and watch it come out the other end as mince. Don't forget to put a bowl underneath to catch the mince!

It took literally no more than a minute or two before I had a lovely bowlful of minced beef. I decided to keep it simple and seasoned the meat with salt and pepper and oregano.

When I've made cannelloni before, I've cooked the mince first, but then found it tricky to stuff the meat into the dried pasta tubes. I decided to try stuffing the cannelloni with raw mince - I checked on the internet that this would work and I wouldn't end up with raw meat, and it seems to be a perfectly acceptable method. It was much easier to get the raw mince inside the pasta though when it cooked it had turned into pretty much a sausage!

Place the filled cannelloni tubes in a foil-lined baking tin and pour over passata which you can mix with garlic or herbs and season to taste.

Bake in a preheated oven at 180C for about 20-25 minutes.

To serve, sprinkle with parmesan cheese. This is a pretty simple but tasty recipe and was a great way to test out my new KitchenAid attachment!

Spinach, Cottage Cheese and Roasted Garlic Cannelloni

 I was trying to find ways to eat more vegetables and decided that spinach and ricotta cannelloni would be nice. I was browsing for recipes on the Slimming World website to see if there was a lower fat version and indeed I came across a recipe for spinach and cottage cheese cannelloni. It wasn't quite as nice but it works out as only one syn on Extra Easy so to me it's well worth making this instead of the full fat version.

To serve two, you need:

8-12 cannelloni tubes (the ones I used were quite small)

1 tbsp parmesan cheese

100g spinach leaves

125g fat-free natural cottage cheese

1/2 tsp grated nutmeg

1 egg yolk

250 ml passata

pinch of sweetener

1 garlic clove, roasted and the filling scooped out; or raw and crushed

salt, pepper

Preheat the oven to 180C. Bring a pan of water to the boil and cook the spinach leaves for a few minutes until they have wilted.

Drain the spinach in a colander and finely chop. I was amazed at how much it reduced down!

Mix the cottage cheese with a little seasoning, the nutmeg, garlic, egg yolk and the spinach.

Spoon into the cannelloni tubes and place them in a small baking tin lined with tin foil. The cannelloni tube on the right is meat, for my boyfriend (I'm not vegetarian so don't mind cooking the two together) - that's why it's a different colour!

Mix the sweetner and passata and pour over the cannelloni, making sure the pasta is completely covered.

Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes until the pasta is soft.

Sprinkle over parmesan cheese if desired to serve.

I'm sending this to the One Ingredient Challenge, hosted by Nazima at Franglais Kitchen, and Laura at How To Cook Good Food, as the theme for January is "healthy".



Similarly the theme for Four Seasons Food this month is "virtuous". The challenge is hosted by Louisa at Eat Your Veg and Anneli at Delicieux.

 

 The theme for this month's Cheese Please is winter warmers - baked cannelloni is a great dish for a chilly winter's evening. The challenge is hosted by Fromage Homage.




Pasta Please is asking for recipes using garlic this month and I've used garlic in my cannelloni (though I forgot to take a photo of it!). The challenge is hosted this month by The Spicy Pear on behalf of  Jacqueline at Tinned Tomatoes.



I am also sending this to Simply Food's Let's Cook... with green vegetables as I've used spinach here.