Ricotta gnocchi dumplings with Italian tomato sauce

The second thing I did with the ricotta was these ricotta dumplings, one way to get some calcium too :)
The other I did was those ricotta hotcakes I posted the other day.
Anyway this is the recipe for you all, enjoy!


Ingredients for Gnocchi
500g ricotta cheese
1 egg
Juice of half a lemon
2 tbsp chopped basil
2 cups of spelt flour approx or gluten free flour plus extra
Salt and pepper

Method

Mix together the ricotta, egg, lemon and basil and 1 cup of the flour. Keep adding more flour until you get a dough consistency. Knead only until it comes together, you don’t want to over work it or it will toughen. Add extra flour as needed. Roll as traditional gnocchi or you can roll into tbsp. sized balls (this takes less time). The littles ones take a little less time to cook.

Ingredients for Sauce
3 large kumatos (or normal ones) this is about 400g, 1 cm dice
1 brown onion, diced
2 carrots, small dice
3 stalks of celery, small dice
4 cloves of garlic, crushed
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 cup of vegetable stock- you could use chicken stock
2 tbsp tomato paste (the thick concentrated one)
2 tsp sugar
2 tbsp chopped basil (you can use more if you want)

Method

Fill a large pot of salted water for your gnocchi.

In a large pan heat a little oil and fry off the onion, garlic, carrots and celery for 2 minutes, then add in vinegar, stock, tomato paste, kumatos and simmer for 10-15 minutes or until it has thicken to form a sauce for your gnocchi. Then add the sugar and the basil. Stir through.

While that is simmering away you can cook off your gnocchi’s in the boiling water, you can do half the gnocchi at one time. Put the gnocchi’s in gently and cook until they float up to the top, then scoop out with a slotted spoon out and place in your sauce to keep warm. Then cook the other half. Check the first one to make sure it’s cooked through and not doughy in the middle. 

Then serve up with parmesan cheese and steamed veg on the side.

Italian baked meatballs with buffalo mozzarella

Serves 4- you can use 750g mince and serve 6

Ingredients

500g pork and veal mince

2 browns onions finely chopped

5 cloves of garlic finely chopped

1 carrot, ½ cm dice

1 stalk of celery ½ cm dice

1 cup of tomato passata

1 cup of beef or chicken broth

2 tsp dried basil- if you have fresh basil and oregano you can use that, just use a small handful of each and chop- or as much as you would like to use.

2 tsp dried oregano

250g tub of buffalo mozzarella, sliced thinly- you can find this in this nice cheese section at the supermarket, it’s a fresh mozzarella and is white in colour, will be in brine or most likely oil. If you can’t find it you can use normal mozzarella which is yellow and firmer or you can use grated mozzarella.

Method

Preheat your oven to 200c or 180 c fan forced.

Season the mince really well with salt and pepper, knead together until sticky and form tbsp sized balls and set aside. In a large pan heat some olive oil and fry off your meatballs for 1-2 minutes until browned. Then put in your onion, garlic, carrot, dried herbs and celery, passata and broth- simmer, stirring a further 1-2 minutes until the broth is hot. Transfer to an oven proof dish and bake for 30 minutes, uncovered.

When done-If you are using fresh buffalo mozzarella just slice and put on top of your meatballs and bake a further 5 minutes or until melted. This doesn’t take long.

If you are using the normal mozzarella which is more yellow in colour and firmer put under a hot grill on and cook for 5-8 minutes until melted and golden brown. This takes a little longer to melt than the fresh mozzarella.

Serve this with some nice crusty Italian ciabatta bread to mop up the juices, or some zoodles (zucchini/vegetable noodles) some thick cut pappardelle pasta, or pasta of your choice, or no pasta, you could even have with some creamy polenta. Also have with extra steamed vegetables or a nice big salad.