This is good stuff – what more can I say? This dish comes together in about 20 minutes flat. A gnocchi dish is incredibly easy to make and is very inexpensive. My neighbourhood grocer, Donalds market, has gnocchi on sale this week for $1.39 a package, and in this recipe, that serves about 4 people. I keep packages in the freezer and when I’m running short on time, gnocchi can go straight from the deep freeze, right into the boiling water and be done in about 3 minutes. I load this up with mushrooms and grape tomatoes – but you could really add any of your favourite veg – play around!
Serves: 4
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 10 minutes
Ingredients:
1 375g pkg gnocchi
grapeseed oil for sauteing
1/2 recipe for vegan pesto
10-15 grape tomatoes, sliced in half
4 cups mushrooms (chopped or whole)
1 cup chopped red pepper
1 cup frozen green peas
I recommend reading through this recipe before you begin. You want to time your gnocchi cooking time with the sautéed vegetables so that everything is ready at the same time. This can take a bit of practice. If your gnocchi is done a little too quickly, it will sit aside and stick together. You want to avoid that.
Bring a large pot of salted water to the boil. When it boils, you will add your gnocchi keeping in mind that the gnocchi only takes about 3 minutes to cook – so you can really wait right until the end of the veg cooking to do this..
I like to cut my vegetables into pieces that are about the size of a piece of gnocchi. Sometimes I’ll leave the mushrooms whole for a textural treat. I’ll leave that up to you.
In a large skillet or saucepan, heat some oil and saute the mushrooms until tender (about 10 minutes) I do all of this as my water for the gnocchi is heating to a boil. Add the red pepper to the mushrooms and saute a few more minutes. I never want to overcook my vegetables. You will lose the nutrients and the crispness of the lightly sautéed veg is a nice textural compliment to the gnocchi.
You want to time the cooking of your gnocchi with about the time you add your red peppers to the sautéed mushrooms as the gnocchi will take about 3 minutes to cook – it’s very quick. You can tell they are done as the dumplings float to the surface. As the dumplings start to float to the water’s surface, add your frozen peas to the sautéed vegetable mixture. Give a good stir and then drain your gnocchi (again, this is a timing thing. You want your peas to stay nice and green and not turn brown from over-cooking).
Add the cooked gnocchi to your sautéed vegetables and about half a recipe (about 1/2- 3/4 cup) of your pesto. Toss with the chopped grape tomatoes (you don’t want to cook these – the heat of the gnocchi and sautéed veg will just bring them up to a nice temperature).
Voila. Dinner in about 20 minutes.
*note – gnocchi does contain wheat flour.
