QUARANTINE DIARIES, COMFORT FOOD & ALL THE SMALL THINGS THAT KEEP US GOING

Dora from Pandoras Kitchen is sharing her lockdown experience from Chios island. And she is sharing her amazing beef cannelloni with cream of feta recipe.

Head straight to the recipe.

A few words about you and where did the quarantine find you?

The quarantine found me at Chios island. What a crazy situation we live in! In the beginning you could see people panicking, especially in the supermarkets. Yeast, flour, pasta, toilet roll were specimens hard to find.

How many loo-rolls can you count in your cupboards?

 I did find myself with 2 sachets of yeast, 1 kg of flour, 3 packs of pasta & 8 toilet rolls.

What did it change for you, how do you cope?

My everyday life has changed radically, it is the first time in my post-uni years tat I actually have spare time. Most of the day is spent cooking, photoshooting, eating and reading. I have cooked the most time consuming recipes, from sourdough starter, breads, pasta even butter croissants with all their hundreds folds…but let’s leave these aside. Let’s stick to comfort food, I’m going to share my favourite: beef mince cannelloni!

Comfort food: Beef cannelloni with cream of feta

I’m drooling just thinking about it. So here is the recipe.

Print Recipe

Beef Cannelloni with cream of feta

Ingredients

For the beef mince:

• 500 gr beef mince
• 5 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 white onion finely chopped
• 1 clove of garlic
• 100 ml mavrodaphne or any sweet red wine
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 5 allspice berries
• ½ teaspoon cumin
• 1 bay leaf
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 1 pack of cannelloni pasta tubes

For the cream of feta

• 800 ml milk lukewarm
• 4 tablespoons butter
• 2 eggs
• 5 tablespoons plain flour
• 200 gr feta cheese crumbled
• Salt and pepper
• for the sauce
• 500 gr tomato passata
• 1 garlic clove
• 1 vegetable stock cube
• Salt and pepper
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 teaspoon of sugar

Instructions

• In a deep pot, saute the mince meat, garlic and onion. Deglaze with the wine, add salt and pepper and the spices. Once the liquids have evaporated, we put this pot aside.
• For the sauce, saute the garlic clove in olive oil, add in the tomatoes as well as the rest of the ingredients and simmer for 10 minutes.
• For the cream of feta, we are actually preparing a runny bechamel sauce. Melt the butter in low heat. Add in the flour mixing constantly until it resembles a fine paste. Gradually add in the lukewarm milk so that we get a runny cream. Remove for the heat, beat the eggs in a separate bowl and integrate in the cream along with the crumbled feta cheese. Don’t forget the salt and pepper.
• Once all three are ready we are ready to assemble the cannelloni. Fill in each tube with the cooked mince meat. You can layer them on a single or double file on your baking tray. Follow with the tomato sauce and finally the cream of feta.
• Cover the baking tray with foil and bake for 25 min at 180C in a preheated oven.
• Remove the foil and bake for further 10 minutes to add a crisp on the sauce.
• Let the tray cool down before serving.

Where will you go eat once this madness is over?

I can’t wait for things to get back to normal, get back to work and enjoy a Sunday brunch with my friends.

Share a wish, just so we can finish on a happy note.

Let’s hope it will all finish sooner rather than later with no harm to our ability to connect with each other. If one thing is for sure, we will become better cooks. I can see people are now cooking much more, even if before they wouldn’t even look at a pot twice. 😉

PS1: You can find more about Dora and her kitchen adventures on PanDoras kitchen.

PS2: If you wish to be part of my quarantine cuisine diaries and share your experience on Eat Yourself Greek (EYG), please drop me a line here. Thanks, Eugenia

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