“Pumpkin Everythang”
This month I am definitely on a roll. Every single recipe just gets better and better, don’t mean to toot my own horn……but uhhhh…. beep beep! This is a very subtle, flavorful and delicious dish. Ricotta pairs so well with the garlic roasted pumpkins and the cannelloni pasta is the perfect vessel for this special blend of ingredients. And it’s so weird because I’m normally not a very big ricotta fan (go figure).
This baked pumpkin garlic and onion blend is by go to starter for many
pumpkin recipes, I sometimes use this as the base for sauces, soups and
fillings. Today its mixed with ricotta for the filling as well as blended with
cream and steamed tomatoes to make a pasta sauce. So you see just how versatile
it is. I even had a few forks of it just on its own because it’s that good.
This whole recipe should take you less than an hour from start to
finish. The thing I love most about pumpkin is how quick it is to cook. The
hardest part is peeling it. The smaller they are chopped up the quicker they
cook. The baked pumpkin felt like it took less than 10 minutes to be done. And
once that’s done and the pasta is pre- cooked the recipe us pretty much
finished from there.
My initial intention was to make pumpkin ricotta stuffed shells, but not
a single grocery store had the large pasta shells (and I checked three) it was
pure luck that my eye caught a box of cannelloni. If I had not, I would have
just used lasagna sheets and rolled them up. With that said, you can use any of
the previously mention pasta choices for this recipe.
6 cups chopped pumpkin
2 whole garlic heads
2 cups chopped onion
3 large tomatoes
2 table spoon oil
1 teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon black pepper
2 teaspoon organic no salt seasoning
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 tablespoon thyme leaves
1 cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup Parmesan cheese
15 oz ricotta
12-15 cannelloni pasta
1 cup shredded mozzarella
Instructions:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees
- Boil the cannelloni in salted water for 7 minutes
- Remove from boiling water and rinse with cold water
- Lightly spray some oil in the center and lay on a paper towel to dry
- Finely chop pumpkins, onions, and garlic.
- Season with salt, black pepper, no salt seasoning, onion powder, thyme and oil
- Place on a non-stick baking tray
- At the same time place three tomatoes in an oven safe dish and fill half way with water
- Place the tray of pumpkin and the tomatoes in the oven for 15 to 20 minutes until the pumpkins are cooked
- Reserve 2 cups of the baked pumpkin, place the rest in a dish to cool
For the sauce:
- Carefully remove the skin of the hot tomatoes
- In a blender, place the tomatoes, 2 cups of the baked pumpkin mixture, cream, Parmesan cheese and 1 teaspoon salt. Blend until smooth
For the cannelloni:
- In the bottom of a baking dish spoon 1 cup of sauce
- Fold in the ricotta cheese with the cooled baked pumpkin(try not to crush the pumpkins)
- Carefully stuff each cannelloni fully with the mixture
- Place in the baking dish with sauce, repeat until the dish is filled with stuffed cannelloni
- Pour over the top another 2 cups of sauce and sprinkle with mozzarella cheese
- Bake for 15 minutes covered and 15 minutes uncovered
Greedy tips:
- You can use jumbo shells, or lasagna for this recipe, just boil the lasagna as you normally would, cut them down to around 4 or 5 inch rectangles, fill and roll up. As for the shells those babies are even easier just boil and fill the cavities.
- If your cannelloni pasta rips, never mind fill them any way and roll up, place in the baking dish cut side down.
- It’s easier to fill with a piping bag or small spoon. You can fill one half then flip it around and fill the other side.
- Make sure to chop the pumpkin, onions and garlic into smaller sizes so they will fit into the cannelloni.
Xoxo Greedygirl
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