Homemade gnocchi with meat ragu

My all time worst ever cooking disaster would easily be the pumpkin gnocchi I tried to make a few years ago. It was complete gloop, no matter how much flour I kept putting in. We had pizza for dinner that night.

So you could say it was a bit surprising that I decided to try homemade gnocchi, but I felt like a challenge and something new. I also wanted to try something from my new Beef cookbook, but I wasn't very prepared, so the butcher didn't have the cheaper unusual cuts from the book. So gnocchi with meat ragu it was.


The recipe seemed unusual - no egg, lots of flour. In the end, I didn't use all the flour. The first few gnocchi tasted really doughy. I probably didn't roll the gnocchi small enough and after the first couple of batches, ended up cutting them in half and cooking them slightly longer, which was better. What was good, is that you can make them in advance, so I popped the cooked gnocchi in the fridge for a few hours while I went to the hairdresser.

I came back in time to make John's meat ragu. It should have been good - red wine, garlic, tomatoes, cook for 2 hours. I had also bought some bacon to add to the sauce, but somehow, it was still a bit bland. I topped the gnoochi with the ragu and some parmesan cheese and cooked it in the oven for 20 minutes until it was really hot. Don't get me wrong, it was tasty, just not incredible. And considering it was around 4 hours cooking altogether, it was a bit disappointing.

Chocolate always makes things better, so 'dessert' was a couple of those Leonidas chocolates we brought back from Belgium. Very special.