Cooking with Nonna

Yesterday, the family spent the morning with Nonna Nerina making cannelloni virtually from Italy. What a special treat! Nonna was more the helper than chef but her grandaughter, Chiara, was an outstanding instructor explaining everything in English while visiting with Nonna in Italian.

The girls and I had all ingredients bought and prepped before we logged into the site, "traveling" 30 miles from Rome into Nonna and Chiara's castle. Nonna and her family have lived there for many years. Nonna's husband had made wine on a press located in the kitchen but no an uncle uses the press only occasionally to keep the tradition alive and granddaughter, Chaira, knows the old family pasta recipes which they still use on a daily basis.

Nonna showed us how to use a pasta rolling pin which is approximately three feet long while we struggled to roll our pasta dough out with a standard size rolling pin.

We were told how to make the pasta dough on the wooden boards and then let it rest while we started the water pot, drained and cut the spinach, and mixed the rocotta, parmasean and spinach together. We then rolled the dough as thin as we could, about 1 millimeter thick and cut it a hand with wide before placing it into a pot of salted and boiling water. When the pasta floated to the top of the water , about thirty seconds, it was done and we placed it into cold cater to stop the cooking.

The pasta was then placed on a linen towel and patted dry before putting the cheese mixture on one end and rolling it twice.

 

It was then placed in a baking pan which had been coated with half of the pre-made white sauce.

When the cannelloni had been rolled and placed in the pan, the rest of the white sauce was poured over the top and bits of mozzerela cheese placed on top.  The cannelloni is then placed into a preheated 350 degree oven for 30 minutes or until the top of the cannelloni has a crispy top.

Nonna and  Chaira thought the five of us did a great job and when we ate dinner last night we did too!