Taste Scene: Cold weather treatment

Big, bold, beautiful flavours – that’s what I want in my life, and plenty of them.

I want comfort food in front of the fire, slittering it all down my T-shirt. I want huge bowls of starchy goodness – carbs on carbs – pasta and more pasta, wrapped in a deep tomato sauce, and then bread, loads of punchy garlic bread with real butter, made with real love.

I want soups, lentil and bacon soup with sourdough croutons; Scotch broth thick with barley and buttered bread or better still a molten cheese toasty with unpasteurised goodness.

I want a stew that makes me go weak at the knees, it’s so warming and soothing and touching. I want crispy skin on the chicken. I want gravy – lots of gravy – enough so that there’s leftovers for dipping a heel of a loaf into.

I want hot chocolate with marshmallows and a flake for stirring. And then I’ll have a hot whiskey with lemon and cloves and honey or a mulled wine with brown sugar, orange, nutmeg and star anise and I’ll settle in to watch the TV where the only remaining jobs are topping up the fire with yet another log or two and glancing outside and thanking my lucky stars I’m not out in the cold.

I want all of these things and if you’re making, I’ll have them now (thank you very much).

According to the weather app on my phone, the rest of this week looks as though winter will arrive with a bite and I for one, intend on watching Jack Frost do his worst from the warm side of the window, ideally with one or more of the entries from above to keep my innards warm and cosy.

When it comes to a body’s central heating there is simply nothing better than comfort food – bowls and bowls of the stuff – the kind of food that makes you a little bit sad when it’s gone, when you’re licking the bowl.

This dish, spinach and ricotta cannelloni makes for great central heating and in fact, it’s so tasty, it’s even good cold.

Seasoned cheese with carbs and a decadent but vibrant tomato sauce is a winner every day of the week and in fact, the first time I make this stuff, I ate it three nights on the bounce.

“Aye, at that rate of going you’ll be a bouncing ball all right.”

Enough of that, thank you.

Big, bold and beautiful flavours – that’s what included here, and plenty of them. So, if you don’t like your food as such, look away now.

Also, although this is quite a simple process, it’s labour intensive so you’ll need to be in the form for cooking.

INGREDIENTS

glug of olive oil

6 cloves of garlic, crushed or grated

4 tins of chopped tomatoes

2 tsps of sugar

heaped tsp of oregano

1 pack of cannelloni tubes or if unavailable, conchiglie (the big shells)

500g of spinach

2 tubs of ricotta

2 eggs

lots of seasoning

mozzarella and parmesan, grated

THE PLAN

Start by making the tomato sauce.

Dash of olive oil into a large pan and then fry up four of the cloves of garlic for about a minute.

Do not burn.

Add the tins of tomatoes, sugar, oregano and a grinding of black pepper and a pinch of salt and bring to a simmer. Let it bubble away for about 15 minutes until thickened. Check the seasoning and then set aside.

Next wash the spinach and add to a large boil of simmering water. Stir through (this helps because you’re dealing with quite a lot) and then as soon as it wilts and changes colour, drain and dump into ice-ed water to stop the cooking process.

After a minute in the ice water, remove and wring out as much water as you can. You can hasten this process by squeezing through a clean tea towl. When almost dry, place onto a chopping board and chop finely.

Place the spinach into a big bowl, add in the garlic and ricotta and mix through. Season with plenty of salt and freshly ground black pepper and after checking to make sure it’s perfect, add the eggs and mix through again. Now for the fun part…

If you’re using the cannelloni tubes, use a piping bag to fill these with the ricotta and spinach mixture. If you’re using conchiglie, you’ll have to boil these until tender, then cool, then spoon in the ricotta mixture, one at a time. I prefer the tubes, for handiness.

That done, lay a quarter of the tomato sauce mixture into a casserole dish or large roasting pan, then lay on the filled cannelloni/conchiglie and pour over the rest of the tomato sauce. Finally, top with the grated mozzarella and parmesan and retire to a pre-heated oven (180C) for about 20 minutes or until it’s starting to bubble and colour on top.

And that’s it.

I’ve had this with both cannelloni and conchiglie in recent weeks and they’re both equally excellent.

These quantities are enough to feed four hungry adults but if there are any left-overs, stick these in an airtight container and freeze. They’ll make a nice picker-upper some Monday evening when the weight of the world is crushing your spirit and Jack Frost is doing his worst on the cold side of the window.

Happy winter!