ricotta gnocchi and the most amazing tomato sauce

Although I had originally planned a whole host of things to do today – washing, baking; general wholesome, homemaking things like that – sometimes plans get changed. SO instead of baking a cake, I made gnocchi with tomato sauce.

Gnocchi is my favourite type of pasta ever. I love it. I also love fresh ricotta, although I have no way of knowing if that’s what was used in this.

No, I didn’t wimp out and buy gnocchi (as if you could buy ricotta gnocchi anyway… I’ll have to check that actually…) but I also didn’t make this ALL by myself. I work at a cafe, and we serve lasagne. We make it ourselves and there was some leftover bechamel sauce with parsley, ricotta and cheddar mixed in (which tasted amazing on its own incidentally… I bet the lasagne was even better.) I got to take it home because I’m awesome, and I turned it into ricotta gnocchi by adding flour.

Thus, I don’t have a recipe for the amazing gnocchi. I do apologise. I suggest that you start with a basic bechamel sauce, add ricotta, finely chopped parsley, a little bit of grated cheddar and a whole lot of flour. When it’s kinda sticky but dough-y, scoop up teaspoonfuls and drop into boiling, salted water. When they float, let them cook about a minute more and then scoop them out with a slotted spoon; put them in a colander to drain, then serve with this.

Ah, tomato sauce. Add sugar? Salt? Red wine, garlic, tomato paste, basil, oregano, fresh tomato, olive oil… No. The very first time I read Smitten Kitchen was for this sauce, and, frankly, I’ve never looked back – neither for tomato sauce nor my favourite food blog. This stuff is amazing.

I’ll let Deb tell you all about it, but just so you know – once you’ve started, you can’t stop. It’s been on Amateur Gourmet with Adam, Orangette with Molly, Rachel Eats with, well, Rachel…Marcella Hazan, you clearly are a genius.

Make it. And then tell me about it. And then dance in the summer rain.