Daring Cooks: Salmon Cannelloni

Manu from Manu’s Menu was our Daring Cooks lovely June hostess and has challenged us to make traditional Italian cannelloni from scratch! We were taught how to make the pasta, filling, and sauces shared with us from her own and her family’s treasured recipes!

Oh hells yeah, we're doing cannelloni this month! I love pasta and cannelloni is an awesomely satisfying dish that looks impressive but really isn't all that difficult to make. I've been bad these past couple months and haven't had time to do the Daring Cooks challenge, so I made sure to get my butt in gear this month. And, come on, it's cannelloni. No complaints here.

I wanted to do something healthy and low in fat and calories, since it is summer and everyone is trying to lose weight and get into that beach-ready state. I should probably join them in their endeavors, and what better way than making a delicious pasta casserole that's actually good for you?

So this is my cannelloni contribution. I used low fat ricotta in the filling and mixed it with canned salmon and local spinach and peppers (I even resisted topping it with 10000 cups of cheese). Yeah, it was as delicious as it sounds. Though it being low calorie and all, you have to restrain yourself from arguing that that means you can eat half of it.

Salmon Cannelloni
Ingredients
• 2 cans of salmon, drained
• 1/2 cup of low fat ricotta
• 1 red pepper, chopped
• 1 cup spinach, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tsp olive oil
• 18 tubes of cannelloni (depending on the size of cannelloni. I used small tubes)
• 2 cups of your favourite tomato sauce
• 6 slices provolone cheese (about 1/2 cup shredded)

Directions
Preheat oven to 350F.

Heat olive oil in a small skillet over medium heat. Add garlic and sauté for 1 minute. Add spinach and cook until wilted. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Flake salmon into a medium sized bowl. Add ricotta, red pepper and spinach. Season to taste with salt and pepper. If you find it's too dry, add more ricotta (or, if you want, you can use 1 egg).

Spread 1/2 cup of the tomato sauce over the bottom of a 9x13" casserole dish. Using a small spoon (or a piping bag, if you've got the skills), fill the cannelloni tubes, placing them in rows on top of the tomato sauce. Once all of the tubes are filled, top with the remaining tomato sauce. Spread cheese slices on top.

Bake, at 350F, for 20 minutes. Then, turn on your broiler to high and broil for 2-3 minutes, or until the cheese is golden and bubbly. Enjoy!