This is pretty easy and fun to prepare. I saw someone on Pinterest made potato cannoli shells. Their recipe sounded like a great idea but when I tried it it didn’t work. I had to figure out on how to make it work. I experimented a little. I had to roll it the other way and mine needed almost twice as long in the oven to get done. I also tried this with different sized cannoli tubes. It really didn’t make a difference on what size tube I used…they came out about the same. I do NOTE that a few of the potato “cannoli” shells do not come out because a few will unwind in the oven….and become a really tasty potato chip. I note that you do need a mandolin to slice the potatoes “POTATO CHIP THIN” or they will be too thick to roll around the cannoli shell tubes. Then the fun part was coming up with a filling. I thought something like a real cannoli would be perfect….So I mashed the potato with home made ricotta, some shredded parmesan, and one small dried Calabrian chile. Serving size is difficult to judge because I don’t know if you want a small or large serving. I’d guesstimate around 7-8 smaller servings.

Ingredients for around 6 servings

neutral non stick spray

4 oz unsalted butter – melted in a small tub

2 potatoes – sliced very thin on a mandolin…if you don’t slice thin enough the potato won’t wrap around the cannoli tube)

sea salt – to taste

fresh ground black pepper – to taste

1 pound potatoes – boiled till soft with salted water

1/4 cup parmesan – grated

1/2 cup ricotta – drained well and preferably home made – (Adding the ricotta is like adding the milk and butter to regular mashed potatoes……you might need slightly more or less depending on how well drained the cheese is)

1 Calabrian short pepper – crushed or any pepper you like to taste…………crushed red pepper is hotter with less flavor than Calabrian pepper so my second choice for this would be 1/4 teaspoon of ground white pepper with a small pinch of nutmeg..

Directions

Peel and rough cut up the pound of potatoes. Boil them in salted water until they are soft and then drain them. (around 10 minutes but timing can differ.

Set your oven to 400 degrees F.

Spray your cannoli tubes and a baking sheet with non stick spray.

Put the sliced potatoes one at a time in your tub of melted butter so they can soak the butter up a little.

The potato slices get wrapped around the cannoli tubes that you might want to put seam side down to try to hold them together.

When I did this with my mini tubes I had to rest the tubes against each other so they wouldn’t roll around.

You need to watch them because the timing could differ. I don’t know if you sliced yours as thin. Mine took around 12 minutes on the middle rack at 400 degrees F and salt and peppered them.

I let them cool enough so the tubes didn’t burn my fingers. The potatoes slid off easily.

When the boiled potatoes were done they got drained. I mashed them with the parmesan and ricotta. Added the crushed short Calabrian chile. I thought that the seasoning was perfect but you might want to adjust to your liking.

Then I used a pastry bag and got them done.

These were garnished with fresh basil, home made traditional pesto, and cherry pepper slices.

ENJOY!!!