It had been a long week at work and I was in need of comfort food. I also happened to have a pile of slightly limp and sad looking beets in my veg drawer so decided to do some experimenting!
This dish really proves that gnocchi is just the most fabulously easy and versatile vegetarian dish, and so easy to make with zero waste! I even boiled up all my veggie scraps as I went to make a lovely stock to use in my (now slightly purple) dal.
I used a slightly altered version of my standard fried potato gnocchi recipe, but just switched out about 2/3 of the potatoes for well cooked and dried beets. This version took in a lot more flour to get it was thick enough, but we were stoked because there was more to love!
Beets by Dr Cait?
Blend 'em up nice and fine.
Divide into chunks, and roll into sausages with lots of flour. Then snip into bite sized segments.
Bake at 180 until firm and slightly browning.
Toss to remove extra flour and chuck into a super hot pan with lots of butter. Fry until starting to golden.
In a separate pan get your flavours going, slow cook an onion in some butter until it is almost caramalised. Throw in some garlic, salt, and pepper. When you are about 10 minutes from serving throw in a small handful of sage.
About 8 minutes from serving chuck in a couple of cups of peas. About 4 minutes before serving throw in a few big handfuls of shopped spinach (we were lucky enough to have some fresh from the garden!) to wilt.
Combine carefully - your lovely beetroot gnocchi can be a tad delicate.
Serve with oodles of parmesan cheese and a good grind of pepper. For a vegan version lashings of nutritional yeast will do a similar job! :)
Apologies for the weird colouring on photos, my camera decided to go retro on me... Hopefully it all looks good enough to try anyway.
Have a fabulous day and thanks for reading.
xo Cait
Labels: recipe, vegetarianism, zero waste
