Ricotta Gnocchi

Ready, steady, go! Dinner on the table in less than half an hour with those ricotta gnocchis.  All you will need is ricotta, a bit of flour and some parmesan or similar cheese.  The method is super easy and you can also get help from others, children included. The recipe is fun.  In this recipe, I serve them with roasted vegetables.  The recipe is inspired from one found on Delicious.

This quantity serves easily 4 people (you could extend it to five).

Ingredients:

For the roasted vegetables:

Tip: here you need to adapt to what you have in your fridge, so don’t hesitate to swap around. 

  • 1 or 2 capsicums
  • 1 onion (red or brown)
  • 2 tomatoes cut in quarters or one punnet of cherry tomatoes
  • 1/3 aubergine (eggplant) cut in cubes
  • 2 tablespoons of olive oil
  • 6 garlic cloves unwrapped

For the gnocchi:

  • 500 g of firm ricotta
  • 50 g of grated parmesan (or similar)
  • 80 g of plain flour

To serve (optional) baby bocconcini (or small pieces of mozzarella cheese), a little olive oil, fresh basil or fresh thyme.

Method:

  1.  Preheat the oven to 250°C.  Peel onions, capsicums, remove seeds, cut in 1 cm thick wedges, and place on the roasting tray. Add garlic, tomatoes, and other prepared vegetables.  Add the olive oil. Toss. Crack salt on top.  Roast for 10 minutes or until just cooked (then remove from the oven and set aside – keep the oven gnocchi ingredientson).
  2. In a large bowl, combine the ricotta, flour and parmesan. Make a ball. If the ball breaks add a few spoons of water until consistent, if it is too sticky, add a little flour. Divide the ball into four.
  3. Working on a lightly floured kitchen bench, roll each in a long 1-1.5 cm thick log (Tip: a bit like when you made clay pots at high school from rolled clay if you ever did that). Cut each roll every two centimetres.  cutting ricotta gnocchi
  4. Boil water in a large saucepan. When the water is boiling add half of the ricotta gnocchi. They will fall at the bottom.  With a slotted spoon, remove them from the water as soon as they come up floating to the top and place them over the vegetables.
  5. When all the gnocchis are cooked and placed on the vegetable. gnochis prepsAdd the fresh thyme, bocconcini/mozzarella, a filet of olive soil and place back in the oven until slightly golden.  Remove the ricotta gnocchi from the oven. If using fresh basil rather than thyme, add the basil leaves. Serve.

 

Yoghurt cakes

Again  a french classic, yoghurt cakes are called gateaux au yahourt in the french cuisine! The reason yogurt cakes are so well loved is these crusty edges and top and the moist inside with that yoghurt taste cake that we recognise closed eyes.

yoghurt cake

A yoghurt pot to measure all ingredients! How fun for kids!

In France, the recipe is based on the volume of a little pot of yoghurt (about 1/2 cup), so it is fun to measure the other ingredients with that container.  Elsewhere in the word, yoghurt may not be sold so much in individual portions by default and also the use of measuring cups is not a novelty!

muffin gateau yahourt (2)

Two recipes to choose from:

Anyway, for you here, I have added two recipes to this blog and provided the quantities in grams as well.

  • The first one is the “original” yoghurt cake, it can be a bit floury, it is a matter of taste.
  • The second one (Yoghurt Cake, the other version) is not floury and has more yoghurt (and not so much sugar). I love that one too. The down is that the edges are not as addictive, the cake makes up for it in its taste.

The cake is generally baked in a round tin, but feel free to use muffin trays like I did.

If you use it for afternoon tea, the cake is great on its own.  If you want to serve it for dessert, poach some fruits and serve it with the reduced poaching syrup!

poires pochees gateau yahourt (12)

Enjoy!

 

Egg based