Cannelloni with meat sauce

We are restarting collective cooking this Friday. August 7 was my brother's birthday and I wanted to make something big. I wish I could invested time to make a 3-layers cake, but I ended up making a cannelloni dish with a homemade meat sauce. I didn't expected that these express cannelloni would expand that much during the baking. Sorry about the not-so-good looking pictures, I tried my best.

Serves 4-6

Preparation Time : 10 mins

Cooking Time : 15 mins

Baking Time : 45 mins

Printable Recipe

Ingredients

Sauce

400g ground beef

1 medium onion, chopped

3 garlic cloves, minced

1 28oz. can crushed tomatoes

1 tbsp salt

2 tbsp Italian seasonings

Filling

500g cottage cheese

1 egg, beaten

2 tbsp parsley, minced

1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese

12 cannellonis, instant or cooked according to package

1 - 1 1/2 cup grated mozzarella cheese

Preparation

1. In a large skillet, heat oil over medium-high heat and cook onion, garlic and ground beef until browned.

2. Drain fat from the pan. Add crushed tomatoes, spices and salt. Simmer for 10 mins.

3. Meanwhile, prepare the filling. In a medium bowl, combine cottage cheese, egg, parsley and parmesan.

4. Preheat oven to 375F.

5. Pour half of the meat sauce at the bottom of a 13 x 9 inch pan.

6. With a spoon, fill up the cannellonis with the cottage cheese mix. Put it over the meat sauce.

7. Cover the cannellonis with the remaining meat sauce.

8. Bake for 40 minutes. Remove pan from the oven and top with the mozzarella cheese. Bake for 5 more minutes. Serve.