It's An Illuuusion!

I get very excited by when food looks like something else (I'm aware I come across as very excitable on this blog. I ... am). Whether it's shaped birthday cakes - that's a whole other post, which I'm sure will come up at one point - or those little cupcakes baked in ice cream cones (you know, the sort that people look at and wail 'BUT WHICH ONE IS IT??')... it's like playing edible mind games. And the best mind games are the sort you can eat.

This, for example. It may look like canneloni.

But AHA! Look close! That's not pasta! It's not even chicken skin, though the further one looks a bit like it o__O. Yeah, look at the one nearer the camera. Rather than use canneloni tubes, this recipe makes little omelette rolls, and fills them with spinach and soft cheese. Easy, but very exciting if you have nothing else to do at the weekend.

I've been revising for a Psychology A-Level, okay? (Yes, it went fine, thankyou). I've not had anything any more exciting to do at the weekend.

I would serve this with a nice salad, but we had nothing vaguely green in our house. Sad. So I improvised a tomato salad instead, if by 'making a tomato salad' you mean 'cutting up a tomato'. And I do.

Omelette Cannelloni with Spinach Filling

From Vegetarian Supercook by Rose Elliot

Serves 4, 340 calories per serving

150g washed spinach

125g low-fat soft cream cheese

8 tbsp parmesan cheese (okay, I heard a rumour parmesan wasn't vegetarian. Can anyone clear that up? If it's the case, use vegetarian parmesan, which I'm certain exists).

grated nutmeg

4 eggs

2 tbsp water

1 tbsp olive oil

1. Put the spinach with just the water clinging to the leaves into a GIANT saucepan, cover and cook for 6-7 minutes or until tender. Drain well, and don't burn your finger in the process.

2. Add the cream cheese and 4 tbsp of the parmesan to the spinach. Mix well and season with salt, pepper and grated nutmeg. Set aside.

3. Whisk the eggs with the water and salt/pepper to taste. Heat a little olive oil in a frying pan, then pour in about 2tbsp of the egg to make a small omelette. I considered the first one a practice, haha. Cook for a few seconds, until it is set, then lift out onto a plate. Continue in this way until you have made about 8 small omelettes, piling them up on top of each other.

4. Spoon a little of the spinach mixture onto the edge of one of the omelettes, roll it up and place in a shallow dish. Fill the others in the same way, until all the spinach mixture is used up, and place them snugly side by side in the dish. Sprinkle with the rest of the parmesan and baked at 190C for about 20 - 25 mins, until bubbling and golden brown on top.

Not as high labour as it sounds, I promise, and worth it. Besides, you'll find you're surprisingly willing to do pretty much anything if the alternative is revising Bandura's work on Social Learning Theory.