I usually like a vegetarian tomato sauce with my pasta dishes, or a good meat sauce that my mom makes when i go visit. However, i like to make this on the occasional Sunday meal as its gears towards some richness.
I do not always get fontina, sometimes i use a Taleggio or my favourite cheese Gruyere.
It can be a tad pricey (good cheese often is), but it is an easy dish to make.
Once again, this is not my recipe. I like to make it get more brown on top..those crunchy and then soft cream bits are sooooooooooo good.
A quick take on spinach and ricotta cannelloni, this baked pasta is fast because there's nothing to stuff. The filling is simply tossed with cooked rigatoni that's then topped with fontina and baked to a golden brown.
RECIPE INGREDIENTS 1 pound
rigatoni 3 tablespoons olive oil 1 10-ounce package frozen spinach, thawed 2 cups (about 1 pound) ricotta cheese 5 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese 1/2 teaspoon grated nutmeg 3/4 teaspoon salt 1/4 teaspoon fresh-ground black pepper 6 ounces
fontina cheese, grated (about 1 1/2 cups)
DIRECTIONS Heat the oven to 450 degrees F. Oil a 9-by-13-inch baking dish.
In a large pot of boiling, salted water, cook the rigatoni until almost done, about 12 minutes. Drain. Put the pasta in the prepared baking dish and toss with 1 tablespoon of the oil.
Meanwhile, squeeze as much of the water as possible from the spinach. Put the spinach in a food processor and puree with the ricotta, 3 tablespoons of the Parmesan, the nutmeg, salt, and pepper. Stir in half the fontina.
Stir the spinach mixture into the pasta. Top with the remaining fontina and Parmesan. Drizzle the remaining 2 tablespoons oil over the top. Bake the pasta until the top is golden brown, 15 to 20 minutes.
Variation
You can substitute another chunky pasta, such as penne rigate, penne, ziti, or fusilli. Boil all of these one or two minutes less.
