Veggie Cannelloni

Ingredients

• 1 jar of strained tomato sauce (passata)
  
  
• 1 jar of diced tomatoes
  
  
• 1 small can of tomato paste
  
  
• white balsamic vinegar
  
  
• 1 large onion
  
  
• 2 cloves of garlic
  
  
• 1 leek
  
  
• 1 large bag of fresh spinach
  
  
• 6 stalks of celery
  
  
• 2 winter carrots
  
  
• 2 eggplants
  
  
• 250 gr (cooked) quinoa (I used the ready-made bag of quinoa&bulgur from AH)
  
  
• olive oil
  
  
• parmesan cheese
  
  
• vegetable stock cube
  
  
• black pepper
  
  
• smoked paprika
  
  
• basil

How to

1. I always like to cut all the vegetables first so all I have to do afterwards is slide everything into the pan.
   
   
2. So: chop the onion and chop the garlic. Wash the leeks and cut into half rings. Wash the celery and cut in half and then into slices. Wash and and peel the carrot and cut into small cubes.
   
   
3. If you don't have the ready-made quinoa then prepare the quinoa according to the package. (I always make extra quinoa because it is super convenient the next day as a base for your lunch)
   
   
4. Heat a generous splash of olive oil in a thick-bottomed pan, making sure it doesn't get too hot. Sauté the onion and garlic, making sure it doesn't burn. When these are glazy, then add the leeks and after a minute add the carrot as well. Keep stirring well so it doesn't burn. Then add the celery and stir again. Add the jar of tomato puree and stir again for a minute to release the aromas of the tomatoes. Add the balsamic vinegar and stir. Now add the passata and the diced tomatoes. Heat this with some finely chopped basil, half a teaspoon of smoked paprika (measure this really well, because it has a very strong taste), fresh pepper and 1 stock cube. When the sauce is hot add the spinach. Stir little by little until it shrinks. Now add a generous handful of freshly ground parmesan. Let the sauce simmer on low heat for half an hour so that the flavors can be absorbed. Taste the sauce to see if it contains enough salt and pepper.
   
   
5. Preheat the oven to 170 degrees.
   
   
6. Now we are going to cut the eggplants into thin slices and rub them with olive oil. I usually do this with olive oil cooking spray. Fry them briefly alternately in a grill pan until nice stripes appear on them.
   
   
7. Stir the quinoa into the sauce and spoon half of it into a baking dish. Next, make the rolls by putting some sauce on top, rolling them up and placing them in the sauce. This is how you build up the whole dish. Add more parmesan and put this in the oven for a short time. 15 minutes or so.

Enjoy!!!

#cannelloni #healthydish #Vegetarian