Gnocchi with tomato, basil and mozzarella

I tried to make my own gnocchi last year. Disaster. First the mixture wasn't, as Greg Wallace would say, wet enough. Then I managed to get it together but it wouldn't roll out very well. Then when I'd finally managed to make some little potato dumplings, I stupidly put them on top of each other in a glass bowl ready for boiling. They all merged together. By the time I'd separated and cooked them, I had these misshapen, heavy potato blobs that tasted a bit floury. I want to give them another go but Chayne has outlawed it so far. So I bought some gnocchi from the shop and made this quick 30 minute tea. With potato, tomatoes, basil mozzarella and chilli I'm ticking all the boxes for my wife!

Ingredients
500g Gnocchi
1 small red onion, finely chopped
1 red chilli, finely crushed
400g tin of chopped tomatoes
1 ball of mozzarella
Handful of basil

Recipe
1) Heat 2 tbsp of olive oil in a saucepan. Add he finely chopped onion and saute for five minutes before adding the chilli and cooking for a further two minutes.
2) Add the tomatoes followed by the gnocchi, season with salt and pepper and simmer for 10 minutes until the gnocchi has softened.
3) Tear up the basil and the mozzarella. Stir the basil into the mixture and tip it all into a baking dish. Dot the mozzarella over the top of the gnocchi and place under a grill until the cheese is golden and bubbling. Serve with a green salad.

Steamed Treacle Sponge

It was my birthday last Thursday and Chayne treated me to a few gifts for our kitchen cupboard. Unlike the small pudding basins she bought me for Christmas last year, I'm determined that these gifts actually make it out of the cupboard and are put to good use. The tongs she bought me have already been used for a sandwich - the contents of which I shall not mention on this vegetarian blog - and on Saturday I used my new 1 litre pudding steamer from Lakeland to make this steamed treacle sponge. I could have made a fancy sauce to go with it and drizzled it over the top for the purposes of the picture but we cracked open a can of ambrosia custard. It was great and Chayne was so pleased with how it turned out she insisted that I pose with the pud.

Ingredients
175g butter
175g light muscavado sugar
3 large eggs
1 tbsp treacle
175g self-raising flour


Recipe
1) You need a 1 litre pudding basin for this. My new pudding steamer is brilliant You don't need to grease it and it has a lid which clips on the top so there's no need to faff about with string and foil. However, if you don't have one of these, you'll need to prepare a 1 litre pudding basin. Start by greasing it.
2) Now for the sponge mixture. Beat the butter in a bowl with an electric hand mixer until fluffy. Then add the sugar and continue beating until pale. Add the treacle and beat in the eggs one at a time, adding a tablespoon of flour with the final egg. Finally fold in the flour.
3) Spoon the mixture into your pudding basin and secure the lid. Or, if you don't have a lid, cover the top with a sheet of pleated buttered foil and tie it around the bowl with string.
4) Place your bowl in a large pan, fill with boiling water until it reaches half-way up the basin, put a lid on the pan and simmer for two hours. You may need to top up the water after an hour. Also, if you can't get a lid on your pan (this happened to us), cover the pan with foil.