Vegan cannelloni | Cruelty free Recipe
Special quite days and occasions need to be filled with goodness to be really special.
In Southern Italy still exists a particular culinary tradition, where is still possible to taste authentic genuine food, as it once was. Yet, Southern Italy regional food and tradition are considered, by non- Italian cultures, as a complicated, but genuine, combination of ingredients. “Add a seat at the table, if there is one more friend” is the perfect motto to describe what normally happens at Italian tables.
Sunday lunch, birthdays, Christmas and any other holidays: you spend them laughing and eating around a table full of delicacies. It’s a real challenge against someone’s limits but unusually there’s always a free part in every stomach to accept a little more food.
It may seems strange, even crazy, but during these days the atmosphere is really special, so you have to grow up in such Italian families to really understand what it means. When you grow up adults and you move from your native place, of course, you lose such habit. (in fact, when you go back home to you relatives it sounds ironically traumatic).
Yet, despite the distance, I still have the habit to cook for all my family, especially during special days, and enjoy food made with love.
Unfortunately, there are some dishes cannot be enjoyed every day. Today is an important day for me: I am going to bake cannelloni stuffed with tofu, basil, spinach and nuts and covered with sauce and all my love.
Ingredients for 4 people:
- 12 Cannelloni;
- 1 kg fresh spinach;
- 350 Tofu
- 50 g cashew nuts;
- 100 pine nuts;
- Just enough basil;
- Organic oil;
- A pinch of salt.
Ingredients for the sauce:
- 1/2 golden onion;
- Garlic cloves;
- 500g tomato sauce;
- Organic oil;
- Just enough salt;
- Some basil;
- Fennel seeds;
- Half lemon juice.
Method:
For stuffing:
- Clean spinach and eliminate stems. Wash and rinse.
- Cut tofu and let it marinate with salt, olive oil, lemon and chopped basil for 30 minutes.
- Mash spinach, marinated tofu, cashew nuts and pine nuts
- Add to the mixture all the ingredients and stir them well
- Leave the mixture in the fridge for about 20 minutes
For the sauce:
- Put a pan over the heat with a little olive oil:
- Mince onion. Peel a clove of garlic.
- Add onion and garlic in a frying pan, wait until it becomes browner;
- Add tomato sauce, salt, pepper, fennel seeds and a few basil leaves.
- Cook for about 20 minutes
- Stir often with a wooden spoon to prevent sticking on the bottom;
- Eliminate garlic cloves.
For the cannelloni:
- Cover the base of a roasting pan with the sauce.
- Add the filling for cannelloni, using a piping bag.
- Cover the surface of the cannelloni with the sauce.
- Cover the pan with an aluminum foil and bake at 180° for 30 minutes.
- After 20 minutes, remove the foil to sear the surface of cannelloni.
- Serve hot.
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