new moon !!!

If you love the night ... well you should know that today is the first new moon of the year !! I LOVE IT !!!
:-D!

berries pie

I love old movies,love movies, and always want a piece of that berry pie that they make. Well I looked for an easy recipe and everyone compliments this. This is easy and very delicious with whipped cream. You can substitute the berries for 4 cups of mixed berries

Ingredients
•3/4 cup fresh strawberries, halved
•1-1/2 cups raspberries
•1 cup and 2 tablespoons fresh blueberries
•1/4 cup and 2 tablespoons white sugar
•2 tablespoons and 3/4 teaspoon cornstarch / corn flour
•3/4 recipe pastry for a medium pie

how to make it ?????

1.In a large mixing bowl, stir together sugar and cornstarch. Add strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries; gently toss until berries are coated. When using frozen fruit allow fruit mixture to stand for 15 to 30 minutes, or until fruit is partially thawed.
2.Line a medium pie plate with half of the pastry.
3.Stir berry mixture, and transfer to the crust lined pie plate.
4.Roll out the top crust and sprinkle with sugar, give it a quick roll with the rolling pin.
5.Top with second crust, and seal and crimp the edge. To prevent over browning, cover the edge of the pie with foil.
6.Bake at 375 degrees F (190 degrees C) for 25 minutes when using fresh fruit, 50 minutes for frozen fruit.
7.Remove foil. Bake for an additional 20 to 30 minutes, or until the top is golden. Cool on a wire rack.

SPINACH AND RICOTTA CANNELLONI!!!!

This is such a wonderfully light and super-tasty cannelloni, and again I've avoided making the frustrating, painstaking béchamel sauce and given you a much tastier and simpler version. All you need to make sure of is that you fill the cannelloni well with the ricotta and spinach mix, so it's not all full of air. And the lovely thing about it is that it goes crispy and golden on top, but remains soft and moist at the bottom. You'll love it!

INGREDIENTS
• 2 knobs of butter
olive oil
• 2 cloves of garlic, peeled and finely sliced
• a large handful of fresh marjoram or oregano, roughly chopped
• ¼ of a nutmeg, grated
• 8 large handfuls of spinach, thoroughly washed
• a handful of fresh basil, stalks chopped, leaves ripped
• 2 x 400g tins of good-quality plum tomatoes, chopped
• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• a pinch of sugar
400g crumbly ricotta cheese
• 2 handfuls of freshly grated Parmesan cheese
• 16 cannelloni tubes
200g mozzarella, broken up

for the white sauce
• 1 x 500ml tub of crème fraîche
• 3 anchovies, finely chopped
• 2 handfuls of freshly grated Parmesan cheese

HOW TO MAKE IT ???
Preheat the oven to 180ºC/350ºF/gas 4. Then find a metal baking tray or ovenproof dish that will fit the cannelloni in one layer so it's nice and snug. This way you'll get the right cover of sauce and the right amount of crispiness on top. When I cook this at home I just use one pan to cut down on lots of washing up! Take your metal tray or a saucepan, put it on a high heat and add your butter, a drizzle of olive oil, one of the sliced garlic cloves, a handful of marjoram or oregano and the grated nutmeg. By the time the pan is hot the garlic should be soft. Put as much spinach as will fit into the pan. Keep turning it over; it will wilt quickly so you will be able to keep adding more spinach until it's all in. Moisture will cook out of the spinach, which is fine. By cooking it this way you don't lose any of the nutrients that you would if boiling it in water.

After 5 minutes, put the spinach into a large bowl and leave to cool. Place the pan back on the heat, add a little olive oil, the other clove of sliced garlic, your basil stalks and the tomatoes, then fill one of the empty tomato tins with cold water and add this too. Bring to the boil, then turn the heat down, add a pinch of salt and pepper and the sugar, and simmer for about 10 minutes, until you get a loose tomato sauce consistency. Then take the pan off the heat and add the basil leaves.

By now the spinach will have cooled down, so squeeze any excess liquid out of it and pour this back into the bowl. Finely chop the spinach and put it back into the bowl. Mix it with the liquid, add the ricotta and a handful of the Parmesan, and then use a piping bag to squeeze the mixture into the cannelloni. You can make your own piping bag by getting a sandwich bag and putting the spinach mix into the corner of it. Then twist the bag up and cut the corner off. Carefully squeeze the filling into the cannelloni tubes so each one is filled right up – really easy.

Lay the cannelloni over the tomato sauce in the pan. Or you can pour the tomato sauce into your ovenproof dish and lay the cannelloni on top. To make the white sauce, mix together the crème fraîche, anchovies and the 2 handfuls of Parmesan with a little salt and pepper, then loosen with a little water until you can spoon it over the cannelloni. Drizzle with olive oil, sprinkle with the remaining Parmesan and the mozzarella pieces, and bake for about 20 to 25 minutes until golden and bubbling