Pumpkin Cannelloni & White Wine-Sour Cream-Sage Sauce

And here comes another pumpkin recipe for the Fall... I am on a mission here :)

I looked through several pumpkin cannelloni recipes and decided that I will mix the pumpkin filling with a mushroom-spinach-pine nut filling. The pumpkin is very sweet and I wanted to balance it up with something more earthy and nutty. I also decided to go with a sour cream based sauce because of the sweetness of the pumpkin. Another tip, I used a lot of salt as well for the filling.

Ingredients

Filling

• olive oil
• 1 pound Pumpkin - peeled, seeded and diced
• 1/2 cup Ricotta
• 1/2 cup Parmesan - grated
• 1 tablespoon Butter
• 2 tablespoons Sage - chopped
• 3 Garlic gloves - minced

• 6 brown crimini Mushrooms - sliced
• 3 handful of Spinach leaves
• 1/4 cup Pine nuts
• Salt, Pepper
• 1 package oven-ready Lasagna sheets

Sauce

• 5 tablespoon Butter
• 1/2 sweet Onion - diced
• 3 brown crimini Mushrooms - sliced
• 1 cup dry White wine
• 1/4 - 1/2 cup Sour Cream
• 1/4 Cream
• 5-6 Sage leaves
• Salt, Pepper

Preparation

Preheat oven at 350 degree.

1. Pumpkin Filling 
For these cannelloni, you have a pumpkin and a spinach-mushroom filling. First, you need to create the pumpkin filling. Peel, seed and dice the pumpkin, add 1 cup of water, some salt. Cover the pot and let steam for 15 minutes till tender. Then remove from heat, set aside and start smashing the pumpkin till it is soft. It should be so soft now, that you don't need to apply much strength.

In a frying pan, heat the olive oil. Add the minced garlic and sautee for 2 minutes. Add the chopped sage and fry for 1 more minute. Add the mixture to the smashed pumpkin, add the butter, salt, pepper, ricotta and parmesan cheese. Mix till it's smooth.

Another method that doesn't require so much peeling and cutting would be to roast the pumpkin: Therefore, cut the pumpkin in half, seed it and put it in the oven. Let it roast for about 40-60 minutes (depending on the size) at around 370 degree. When its tender you can just scrape of the soft pumpkin meat.

2. Spinach-Mushroom Filling
For the spinach-mushroom filling, heat some oil, sauté the onion, add the mushrooms and let cook for 3-4 minutes. Add the pine nuts and roast till they are golden brown, add the spinach and heat for another minute. Remove from heat.

3. Cannellonis
For the cannelloni, bring a large pot with water and salt to boil. Add the lasagna sheets and boil for 2 minutes till they are tender. Drain the pasta and place the lasagna sheets on a cutting board, drizzle with oil so that they don't stick together. You will roll the lasagna sheets and as the sheets are very long and I did not want to have much of an overlap of lasagna sheet or big rolls, I cut the lasagna sheets widthwise in half. Then place 2-3 tablespoon of pumpkin filling in the middle of each half of a lasagna sheet, add 2 tablespoon of mushroom-spinach filling, and roll the sheet. Place in a casserole dish, add 1 cup of water, sprinkle parmesan cheese over the cannellonis, add a few sage leaves, and close the casserole with aluminum foil and bake in the preheated oven for 20 minutes at 350 degree.

4. Sauce
For the sauce, heat the butter, add the onion and sauté. Add the sliced mushrooms and the sage leaves, fry for 5 minutes. Add the white wine, salt and pepper, cook for 5 minutes. Add the sour cream, mix and taste the sauce. Add salt and pepper to taste. Turn the heat down and add the cream. Do not boil with the cream as it would separate. The sweet cream will balance the sour cream taste.