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| Recipe of the week... ... Vegan Gnocchi, with Pesto and Kale |
Ingredients: 500g gnocchi, 100g kale, a generous handful of black
pitted olives, a dozen baby plum tomatoes, a few spring onions, 200g chestnut
mushrooms, most of a jar of free-from green pesto, 200g tinned chickpeas, cayenne
pepper, paprika, olive oil, cracked black pepper and sea salt
Serves: 2 big platefuls of food
Time taken: Half an hour
Hi readers,
Happy Tuesday! How are you all today?
Again – but thinking about it properly this time – how are you?
Honestly, I’m a little tired. A little emotional. Quite
happy with life. Worrying about at least four friends/family members. Aware I
haven’t been exercising enough this last week or two. And I need to buy house
warming gifts, I should have done that already. But I think I’m doing good,
overall. Things are good. Yoga and decent sleep will sort me out later.
How about you, readers? If you have time, maybe give a moment’s
thought to how you feel inside. And write a gratitude list? For everything you’re
grateful for right now.
Here’s mine…
Hayley’s Gratitude
List – 13th March
1.
First, I’m grateful for my family and their
health. I’m especially grateful for this, this week, as I met my other half’s dad for the first time this weekend. Who is unwell. And it made me very appreciative of my own father bear’s health. Also, we had Mother’s Day at
the weekend and social media seemed flooded with posts from people missing
their mums. And remembering them and sharing photos with their mums before they
passed. Mine's alive and well.
2.
Secondly, I’m grateful for my other half. It’s all
very new and scary and exciting, still. But he’s lovely and I wouldn’t want to
be without him. And it feels like he’s making my life infinitely better.
3.
Then, third, I’m grateful this week for my home.
I cleaned it, last Friday, so it’s all tidy inside and fresh and comfortable.
And my landlord fixed the boiler and my radiator, so it’s warm at now and we
can have hot showers again. And it rained really hard the other night and brick
wall fell over onto the house – but it didn’t break us! We’ve withstood the
fall of the wall.
4.
Fourthly, I’m grateful this week for my car. She drove through puddles as big as ponds yesterday when it had been raining all day. And she put in a solid effort when we had all the snow recently. She’s keeping me warm and dry and getting me from A to B. I really should treat her to a car wash and Werthers Originals soon.
5.
Finally, number five, I’m grateful for music this week. I randomly got into Bonobo the other night and have a Bonobo playlist on the go now. Somehow, it seems equally good for waking me up in the morning while I put my make up on, and also for falling asleep to at night (on a lower volume). If you haven’t listened before – I recommend!
What do you have to lose by thinking up a Gratitude List, readers? You never know what might come out
when you consider your life as it stands. Maybe think of this as your status
update to yourself?
Now though – without further ado –
I’ll share with you our Recipe of the Week. This recipe, readers, is one I
cooked over the weekend for a date night in with my very lovely other half. It’s
a vegan recipe, based on one I found on the Veganuary website (see the original
here), for a Vegan Gnocchi, with Pesto and Kale.
This recipe came
about as I was excited to find Le
Conserve Della Nonna Free From Green Pesto for sale at ASDA (£2 per jar). I
had vegan pesto – I had to find something to do with it – and I came across
this recipe online which looked to be quite straightforward. No crazy ingredients,
no food processor required, no need to spend hours in the kitchen.
Fancy giving it a
go? Here’s the recipe in just ten simple steps…
--
Recipe: Vegan
Gnocchi, with Pesto and Kale
Ingredients: 500g gnocchi, 100g kale, a generous handful of black
pitted olives, a dozen baby plum tomatoes, a few spring onions, 200g chestnut
mushrooms, most of a jar of free-from green pesto, 200g tinned chickpeas, cayenne
pepper, paprika, olive oil, cracked black pepper and sea salt
Method:
1.
Heat your oven to 200C and get all your
ingredients out on the side. Begin by opening a window, turning off your phone,
and pouring a drink. Maybe play some Bonobo?
2.
Then prep your chickpeas for roasting! You drain
a tin of chickpeas and rinse in cold water, the pour out onto some kitchen
towel and pat dry to remove as much moisture as you can.
3.
Tip the chickpeas into a bowl, add a splash of
olive oil, a shake of cayenne pepper, and a shake of paprika. Mix well, pour
onto a baking try and pop into the oven to roast for the next 20 mins.
ChefBeHere Top
Tip: Why not make too many? I used a large tin of chickpeas and then saved half
my roasted chickpeas to snack on the next day – tasty!
4.
While your chickpeas roast, heat a frying pan or
wok over a small flame with a generous drizzle of cooking oil. Tip your kale
into the pan and season with salt and pepper. Wilt, stirring occasionally.
5.
While your kale wilts, you can be prepping your veg.
Finely chop your spring onions, halve your plum tomatoes, and slice up your
chestnut mushrooms.
6.
Then, save a small handful of spring onions, but
otherwise add your spring onions, mushrooms, tomatoes and olives to the pan
with your kale. Mix well, season with salt and pepper, and fry together for
five minutes.
7.
While your veg cook, set a kettle boiling and tip
your gnocchi into a large saucepan, along with a generous pinch of salt.
8.
Fill your saucepan with water and boil your
gnocchi. Once cooked, drain and add your gnocchi to the frying pan, along with
a large dollop of pesto.
ChefBeHere Top
Tip: You’ll know your gnocchi are cooked when they float to the surface of the
water in the pan – it shouldn’t take too long.
9.
Stir the contents of the pan together and cook
for a few minutes, until everything is combined and has heated through. Once
your chickpeas are roasted, carefully remove from the oven and switch this off.
10. Then
you can plate up! Spoon your gnocchi out between two plates or bowls, sprinkle
with spring onion and roasted chickpeas, then season with cracked black pepper.
And tuck in to your tasty vegan tea.
--
What do you think, readers? Might this gnocchi recipe take
your fancy? I’m really pleased with how it came out! The veg and gnocchi were
no different to normal – I didn’t prepare them any differently in order to make
the dish vegan – the only change I made was to use a free-from pesto. And this
tasted fine! It tasted like pesto, just the same to me.
Then I really enjoyed the addition of roasted chickpeas to
top this dish. In all honesty, without any cheese grated on my pasta, I
probably would have been left feeling as though something were missing from the
dish. Without the chickpeas, I’d have plated this meal up considering it to be
a vegan tea (i.e. it’s almost there
but something’s definitely missing...)
It took no time or effort at all – chickpeas don’t cost a
lot and I just popped them in the oven to roast while I prepared the gnocchi – and
this provided a simple tasty way to top off our tea. They give colour and
crunch, and make the dish feel finished somehow.
Or, at least, I think so anyway. How about you?
Would you give this recipe a try, readers? If you do, please
let me know how you get along! Did everything run smooth in the kitchen? Were
the steps easy to follow? Did your tea turn out okay? Please share your stories
of how you get on with this recipe, readers, and suggest any way you might
adapt the dish or tackle it differently next time.
For now, I’ll leave you to your week. Have a CRACKING TIME.
I’ll be on the wine with my mum…
Roast safely,
Hayley
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