Butternut Squash Cannelloni!

Hello, and welcome to a new episode of AVD, live from The Sticks in rural Norfolk. LOL. Well, I am out in rural Norfolk, but it's lovely. Our current kitchen, while in line for a re-vamp is...shall I say retro? It's not in possession of the greatest cooker known to humankind, but it does a job for now, and it still makes things hot so can we ask too much more? Without any further ado, I present my most recent creation, butternut squash cannelloni!

Presentation, admittedly a but scrappy, does not affect the fact that this was damn tasty. It's straightforward, looks and sounds good, just give yourself plenty of prep time to cook the squash first.

Ingredients;
Cannelloni & Filling

• Cannelloni tubes - allow 3-4 per person
• 1 butternut squash
• Handful of pine nuts
• Grated cheddar cheese 
• Pinch (and really not much) powdered nutmeg

Sauce

• 1 tin chopped tomatoes
• 2 tablespoons green pesto*
• Grated cheese to garnish

The Doings;

1. Now, there are two ways to do the squash, and you can do steps 3-5 while it's cooking. Whatever you do though, preheat the oven to about 180-200 degrees/Gas mark 6 first;
   1: Peel the squash (you'll want to use a sharp knife, skin's a bit tough for a peeler), chop it into smallish chunks, then bung it in a pan of boiling water and leave it for 15-20 minutes until it's really soft OR
   2: . Slice the squash in half lengthways (top to bottom), scoop out the seeds (doesn't matter about the stringy bits too much), cut a criss-cross pattern into the flesh of the squash and then stick it in said pre-heated oven for about 20 minutes. 
2. Either method will leave you with some easily mashable squash, which is what you need to do: Mash. If you used method 1 to cook it, drain the water, then use a fork or a masher to do the dirty work - method 2, scoop it out of the skin and do the same thing.
3. Put the pine nuts under a medium grill until they are lightly toasted. 
4. Get your cannelloni tubes and place them in an ideally oblong (for logistical ease, though anything will do) shallow dish.
5. Put the tinned tomatoes and pesto in a mixing bowl and mix them together - it should be a relatively liquid-y mixture. 
6. Now for the slightly tricky part! Whack the mashed squash in a mixing bowl along with the pine nuts, nutmeg and grated cheddar, give it a good ol' stir through, then spoon it into the cannelloni.
7. The best way to do so, through trial and error, is to stand the tubes on one end and spoon it in the top. Don't lift it up though...it'll just fall out. It happened several times.
8. Get the tubes all rearranged in the dish once filled, pour the sauce over so it's fully covering the pasta, put some tin foil over the top of the dish and put it in the oven.
9. After about 15 minutes, take the dish out, remove the foil, sprinkle some cheese on top then stick it back in the oven for 5-10 minutes. Then, serve and enjoy!

I'd say to serve it with salad or something - in the above picture, we've done a medley of raw veg: broccoli, baby corns, cauliflower and green pepper. 

*Technically, most green pesto that you get in shops in fact isn't vegetarian, because it contains grana padano cheese - it uses rennet, sourced from animal innards, as a stabiliser. So if you're (unlike me) super-veggie, then you can either buy from health food stores or make your own! Just Google it.