We had a wonderful dinner last night for my wife's 53rd. Invited two of our
best friends for dinner and had Fried Olives, Beef and Spinach Canneloni and
then Blueberry Icecream.



We drank mostly San Pellegrino at the start, then Mike and I had a couple of
Peroni's each. With the Canneloni, we had a bottle of Kilikanoon "The
Oracle" Shiraz, 2004. After the icecream, we sipped some home-made
Limoncello (I didn't make it, my wife's assistant made it and gave us a
small bottle. Pretty potent stuff, that.



I made a focaccia to dip into some olive oil - almost a disaster at the
beginning as it came out of the mixer on the first rise looking like a
sponge - took me about 20 minutes to get it back into a dough ball.



I'll be eating the rest of the Canneloni for a week.



Fried Olives

1/2 chicken breast or thigh - you don't need much

1 slice bread, no crusts. Enough milk to cover this.

1 glass white wine

2 rashers bacon

2 tablespoons grated Parmesan

Little bit of grated nutmeg (just a smell)

1 egg yolk



Cook chicken breast until browned.

Put in wine and simmer for a while.

Cook bacon.

Chop chicken breast and bacon up in a food processor.

Rip bread up and soak in milk; squeeze dry and put in with chicken and
bacon. Add egg yolk, Parmesan cheese and nutmeg.



24 - 36 large stuffed olives.

Push out Pimento paste. Push in mixture above.

Note: life is too short to pip olives.



Hoges in WA

In article >,
"Hoges in WA" > wrote:

> I'll be eating the rest of the Canneloni for a week.

Now you are making us jealous. <g>

<snips cool recipes>

Fried olives sound interesting, thanks!
--
Peace! Om

I find hope in the darkest of days, and focus in the brightest. I do not judge the universe. -- Dalai Lama

On Feb 22, 6:46*am, "Hoges in WA" > wrote:
> We had a wonderful dinner last night for my wife's 53rd. *Invited two of our
> best friends for dinner and had Fried Olives, Beef and Spinach Canneloni and
> then Blueberry Icecream.
>
> We drank mostly San Pellegrino at the start, then Mike and I had a couple of
> Peroni's each. *With the Canneloni, we had a bottle of Kilikanoon "The
> Oracle" Shiraz, 2004. *After the icecream, we sipped some home-made
> Limoncello (I didn't make it, my wife's assistant made it and gave us a
> small bottle. *Pretty potent stuff, that.
>
> I made a focaccia to dip into some olive oil - almost a disaster at the
> beginning as it came out of the mixer on the first rise looking like a
> sponge - took me about 20 minutes to get it back into a dough ball.
>
> I'll be eating the rest of the Canneloni for a week.
>
> Fried Olives
>
> 1/2 chicken breast or thigh - you don't need much
>
> 1 slice bread, no crusts. *Enough milk to cover this.
>
> 1 glass white wine
>
> 2 rashers bacon
>
> 2 tablespoons grated Parmesan
>
> Little bit of grated nutmeg (just a smell)
>
> 1 egg yolk
>
> Cook chicken breast until browned.
>
> Put in wine and simmer for a while.
>
> Cook bacon.
>
> Chop chicken breast and bacon up in a food processor.
>
> Rip bread up and soak in milk; squeeze dry and put in with chicken and
> bacon. *Add egg yolk, Parmesan cheese and nutmeg.
>
> 24 - 36 large stuffed olives.
>
> Push out Pimento paste. *Push in mixture above.
>
> Note: life is too short to pip olives.
>
> Hoges in WA

sounds good, but I'm interested in the spinach & beef cannoloni
recipe. THAT sounds wonderful. Do you share that recipe??
Nan in DE Thanks

"Nan" > wrote in message
...
On Feb 22, 6:46 am, "Hoges in WA" > wrote:
>snipped
sounds good, but I'm interested in the spinach & beef cannoloni
recipe. THAT sounds wonderful. Do you share that recipe??
Nan in DE Thanks

No problem

Filling

1 onion, chopped finely

2 or 3 cloves of garlic, crushed

1.2kg mince

400g chopped spinach (chopped very fine)

1 tsp oregano

1 tsp dried basil

2 tbsp tomato paste

2 eggs

½ cup cream

Salt pepper



Fry onion and garlic until it starts to brown and onion goes soft

Add mince, break it up as it cooks as you want it very fine.

When it is brown, add oregano, basil and tomato paste

Cook for a further 5 - 10 minutes on a reduced heat

Add the spinach and combine well

Beat eggs and add cream to the mixture.

Fold into meat/spinach mixture.

Season with salt and pepper.



Remove from heat to cool as you need to handle it later.

You can cook this ahead and take it out of the fridge if you want, although
it would need to sit a while at room temperature so it can be soft enough to
go into the Cannelloni tubes



Bechamel sauce

2 sliced onions or 1 big one.

A dozen peppercorns

3 cups of milk

30 grams of butter

2 tbsps flour (may need one more)

½ cup cream

Salt and pepper



Put the onion, peppercorns and milk into a saucepan and bring to boil
slowly.

Remove from heat, stand about 5 minutes.

Melt butter in another saucepan and stir in flour over moderate heat.

Strain the milk into this, making sure there are no lumps.

Stir until the sauce boils and thickens.

Put in the cream, salt and pepper



Tomato sauce

1.5litres tomato passata or 1kg chopped tomatoes or similar

1 chopped onion

2 or 3 cloves of garlic

3 or 4 tbsp tomato paste

1tsp sugar (I don't know how much this adds to it but I was always told it
makes a difference)

Salt and pepper



Heat a little oil in a pan.

Add onion and garlic - cook until onion is soft.

Pour in tomato passata or if using tinned, chopped tomatoes, push them
through a sieve.

Add tomato paste, sugar, salt and pepper



Assembly

250g Mozzarella

Small amount of Parmesan for grating



Push filling into Cannelloni tubes (I can't do this without breaking the
tubes so my wife does it)

Put a layer of tomato sauce in the bottom of a large oven dish

Lay first row of Cannelloni tubes along the bottom.

Put another layer of tomato sauce, and a second layer of Cannelloni tubes.

Put a final layer of tomato sauce on the top

Spread Bechamel sauce over this.

Grate Mozzarella cheese over the top or cheat and buy a packet of already
grated Mozzarella.

(I can't tell any difference so I use the grated)



Grate some Parmesan onto the Mozzarella.



Bake in 180° oven for about 20-30 minutes.



Ca- make sure ALL of the tubes are covered by the sauce/s - any bits of
pasta sticking out will go hard and not nice.

You may end up with surplus tomato sauce and some surplus filling. No big
deal - put it in the fridge and pour it over spaghetti or similar another
day.

The above is pretty rough but it generally works quite smoothly. I really
hate it when I get the Bechamel wrong and don't have enough so I force
myself to put the three cups of milk in.

In article >,
"Hoges in WA" > wrote:


> 24 - 36 large stuffed olives.
>
> Push out Pimento paste. Push in mixture above.

Don't know about Australia, but in the US you can get olives that are
pitted but not stuffed:

http://www.sbolive.com/product.aspx?...8987-58075e0c0
c9e

--
Dan Abel
Petaluma, California USA

"Dan Abel" > wrote in message
...
> In article >,
> "Hoges in WA" > wrote:
>
>
>> 24 - 36 large stuffed olives.
>>
>> Push out Pimento paste. Push in mixture above.
>
> Don't know about Australia, but in the US you can get olives that are
> pitted but not stuffed:

But they're the black mission olives, not very conducive to any kind of
stuffing except little kids fingers... it's not so easy to find pitted green
olives that aren't stuffed, except for the salad olives, but they're
typically small and most will be broken.

"Dan Abel" > wrote in message
...
> In article >,
> "Hoges in WA" > wrote:
>
>
>> 24 - 36 large stuffed olives.
>>
>> Push out Pimento paste. Push in mixture above.
>
> Don't know about Australia, but in the US you can get olives that are
> pitted but not stuffed:
>
> http://www.sbolive.com/product.aspx?...8987-58075e0c0
> c9e
>
> --
> Dan Abel
> Petaluma, California USA
>

Dan

We can get them but they tend to be very small.
Probably much better variety on the East Coast, or even up in Perth, but
where I am "down South" as they say, my choices are very limited.
If I could lay my hands on some, it would save one extra little task.
Hoges in WA

On Mon, 23 Feb 2009 20:24:43 -0700, Christine Dabney
> wrote:

>On Tue, 24 Feb 2009 03:14:04 GMT, "brooklyn1"
> wrote:
>
>
>>But they're the black mission olives, not very conducive to any kind of
>>stuffing except little kids fingers... it's not so easy to find pitted green
>>olives that aren't stuffed, except for the salad olives, but they're
>>typically small and most will be broken.
>>
>
>I can find unstuffed green olives a lot of places..and they are not
>salad olives. At least two stores here in ABQ have olive bars, and
>several varieties of unstuffed pitted green olives. Unpitted ones
>too.
>
>And I can find them in regular grocery stores as well.
>
>Christine

Same here. In jars or at the deli counter. Me thinks shemp must only
shop at 7-11 and liquor stores.

Lou