Belinda Moore

1.5kg potatoes, peeled and diced
400g plain flour, plus a little extra

Place potato pieces in cold water and bring to the boil over high heat. Cook for approximately 25 minutes or until just tender. Drain well and mash well. Season to taste with salt. Allow to cool slightly.

Add flour to potatoes and use your hands to knead briefly until a soft dough forms. If mixture is still sticky, add a little more flour. Turn dough onto a lightly floured surface.

Break dough into six pieces. Using your hands, roll a piece out to form a log about 2cm wide. Using a lightly floured knife, cut each log into 1.5cm long pieces. Repeat with remaining five lumps of dough.

Press each ball of gnocchi with a lightly floured fork to form marks which help the sauce cling to cooked gnocchi.

Bring a very large saucepan of water to the boil. Add 1/4 of the gnocchi. As they cook, gnocchi will rise to the surface of the water (quite quickly, don’t go away!). Continue cooking gnocchi at the surface for only 10 seconds then remove with a large slotted spoon and drain well. Repeat with remaining gnocchi. Serve immediately, tossed together with your favourite sauce and some grated cheddar and/or parmesan.

Based on this recipe, Brit made this a couple of weeks ago and it’s delicious! Here’s our version:

6 sheets Mountain Bread
1 tbspn olive oil
1 red onion, diced
1 red capsicum, diced
2 zucchini, grated
pinch chili powder
400g tin diced tomatoes
400g tin corn kernels, drained
400g tin red kidney beans, rinsed & drained
salt & pepper to taste
salsa
1 cup grated tasty cheese

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C. Heat oil in frypan, saute onion, capsicum & zucchini. Cook for 3 minutes. Add chilli powder and cook for a further 2 minutes. Add tomato, corn, beans, salt & pepper. Stir & simmer briefly then remove from heat.

Greast a large baking dish. Place 1/4 cup filling on a piece of mountain bread. Roll up and place in dish (seam side down). Repeat with remaining bread and filling.

Spoon salsa over enchiladas and sprinkle with cheese. Bake for 15 minutes and serve immediately with side salad.

I made this last week, based on this recipe. Here’s my version:

• 2 tbspn light olive oil
• 1 brown onion, finely chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1 tbs curry powder (could have used more)
• 600g potatoes, peeled, cut into 1.5cm pieces
• whole large cauliflower, cut into small florets
• 3 cups water + 1 tbspn Massel’s Vegetable stock powder
• 2 cups tomato puree
• 1 cup natural yoghurt
• 1 tbspn cornflour
• 2 cups frozen peas
• Jasmine rice, to serve
• Yoghurt, extra, to serve

Heat the oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring, for 5 minutes or until soft. Add the garlic and cook for 1 minute or until aromatic. Add the curry powder, potato and cauliflower, and stir until well combined.

Add the water, stock and tomato puree to the pan and simmer, uncovered, for 20 minutes or until the potato is tender.

Combine the yoghurt and cornflour in a small bowl. Gradually add to the potato mixture, stirring constantly until well combined. Add the peas and reduce heat to low. Simmer for 2 minutes or until the peas are tender and the mixture is heated through.

Spoon rice among serving bowls and top with the curry mixture. Serve with extra yoghurt.

Liz Parnell who writes for Natural Life and Mixtapezine interviewed me recently!

Last week, the menu went to plan except for Pumpkin Soup, which was moved to this week due to having a BBQ. Oh, we also had too much fish for the BBQ so quiche was canceled. I’ll probably make some Zucchini Slices for lunch this week (and the freezer) instead.

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Last week’s menu went fine, but again we missed a dish and moved it forward a week. We went out for a BBQ and took a lovely pasta salad (and other items) with us.

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Last week my friend the green majikfaerie came to visit with her family. She blogged about their visit here, and the photos and video are cute, so I thought I’d link to her post.

Last week’s menu went well, except we opted for take-away fish instead of the enchilada dish on Sunday as we were totally exhausted and home late. We moved that to tonight.

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This is so yummy and reminds me of the Weis Bar ice-creams.  My neighbour gave me this recipe.

1 cup sugar

1 1/4 cups water

3 cups mango pulp

2 tablespoons lemon or lime juice

300ml thickened cream

Combine water and sugar in a saucepan over medium heat until dissolved into a syrup.  Boil for about 5 minutes.  Let cool.  Process mangoes in a blender, add syrup and lemon/lime juice.

Divide mango mix into two.  Pour one half into a tray (plastic square biscuit container or similar).  Freeze.

Keep the other half of the mix in the fridge until the first lot is frozen.  When it’s set, add the cream to the second half and pour this mix over the frozen half.

Freeze until set, then cut into squares as you want it.  Store in freezer.

Another Simple Savings gem!

Syrup:

2 cups water

2 cups brown sugar (I used rapadura)

2 tbspn butter

1 tsp vanilla

dash of salt

Dumplings:

1 1/4 cups flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

3 tbspn butter

1/4 cup sugar

1/3 cup milk

You will need a saucepan with a good lid in which to cook this dessert.  Begin by combining all of the items listed for the syrup in the saucepan.  Bring the mixture to a boil over medium heat.  While it is heating, combine the flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl.  Cut in the butter, until the mixture resembles very coarse crumbs.  Sprinkle the sugar over the flour mixture and blend briefly.  Stir in the milk, making a soft dough.  Pinch off marble sized pieces of the dough and drop them into the gently boiling brown sugar syrup.  Fill the entire pan with these small dough balls.  When you have used up all of the dough, place the lid on the pot.  Simmer the mixture over medium-low heat for about 15 minutes, without peeking.  The dumplings will steam while they cook and if you peek they will fall and become soggy, not fluffy.

After cooking, serve the dumplings with some of their cooking syrup and some ice-cream, cream or custard.  Very sweet!  This recipe serves 6-8.