Vegetarian Cannelloni

(Recipe for 4 people)

Ingredients
Pasta:
Either 8-12 cannelloni tubes (the dried kind of pasta) or 4-6 fresh lasagne sheets

Tomato Sauce:
About 500-800ml tomato sauce (I like lots, but some people only use a small amount.)
Premade tomato pasta sauce is easiest
OR you can make it using canned (1-2 tins) or fresh tomatoes (4-8 large), onions and whatever else you want - adding half to a cup of red wine instead of some of the water is nice. It needs to be reasonably runny.

Filling:
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon finely chopped or minced garlic
1 onion chopped finely
300-500g cottage cheese or ricotta (ricotta is nicer, but so much more expensive that I use cottage cheese)
Spinach, either 1 bunch fresh spinach, washed and chopped, or 1 pkt (250g or so) frozen spinach, which has been defrosted. You can double this amount for a more spinachy effect if you wish too, just use the smaller amount of cottage cheese and make sure you include an egg or two as noted below.
Seasoning: cottage cheese has salt in it, so if you are worried about such things add very little extra. Pepper is always good with spinach. A little nutmeg and 1/2 teaspoon of dill is also nice, but optional. Hmmm you could try a little basil pesto too...
Optional 1: 1-2 eggs to make the mixture stick together more
Optional 2: You can add mozzarella or parmesan to this filling if you want to, but it isn't really necessary.
Optional 3: Pine nuts or (chopped) Pistachios are a nice, but expensive addition. 1/4 cup would work - as would 3/4 cup if you wanted to emphasise the nuts.
Optional 4: You can add things like a grated courgette or finely sliced capsicum too, although I tend not to bother.

Topping:
1 1/2-2 cups grated Mozzarella and with about 1/4 cup parmesan, or to taste.
If you are worried about cost or fat content, cheat by substituting something like edam cheese.

Preparation:
Make tomato sauce if you want to do that rather than buy it. As it needs to be runny, you need to cook it until the tomatoes are completely broken down, so to allow time, and start with the sauce.

Filling:
Cook onion in oil for about 5 minutes, add garlic and cook for about another 5 minutes. Add spinach and cook for a short time to wilt (if fresh) or evaporate some of the liquid (if defrosted frozen). Add cottage cheese and seasoning, and optional things like eggs, extra mozzarella or nuts.

Either stuff cannelloni tubes with filling, or cut lasagne sheets in half, then place filling on sheets and roll, so you have a tube of pasta filled with the filling - it should be about 2-3 cm thick, with about 1 cm pasta overlap.

Grease a pan big enough to hold the pasta tubes laid side by side. I put a little tomato sauce on the bottom as well, but some people don't. Place the cannelloni tubes in the pan. Cover with tomato sauce and top with cheese.

Bake in a preheated oven at 200 C (400 F) for 30 minutes.