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<blockquote data-quote="Marguerite" data-source="post: 238160" data-attributes="member: 1991"><p>How is he with gnocchi? And how are you with making food from scrtch? For example, easy child & mother in law can't handle raw meat, especially chicken. So when giving recipes to them, I have to forget about any recipes which require them to handle raw meat.</p><p></p><p>Home-made gnocchi is a great feed for a carb junkie, but because it has egg in it as well, it's also very nourishing. Shop-bought gnocchi is ridiculously expensive considering the ingredients, and it's also nowhere near as nice. The home-made stuff is easy (when you have the knack) and you can get very quick with it. It's also fun for kids to make (or help with) from very, very young.</p><p></p><p>As with a lot of pasta, what you put on it is what matters. If you use sauces which are low-fat, you get an ideal feed for a teenage (or almost teenage) boy.</p><p></p><p>I'll now give you the basic sauces from my collection:</p><p></p><p>SOME SAUCE RECIPES FOR LATER SHORT CUTS These are some very basic and often used recipes, many of which can be made ahead in bulk and frozen in small quantities. If you want to make them fresh, you can take a rest break when each sauce you need is made. If you have a day when you have the time and the energy, you can cook meals for a week.</p><p></p><p>PESTO SAUCE </p><p>This is only if you or your family like the stuff - make it when the herbs are available, and freeze it. It can be used for a range of recipes, or even whenever you think of some extra use for it yourself!</p><p></p><p>INGREDIENTS AND TO MAKE:</p><p>Assemble in blender -</p><p>A large bunch of fresh basil, leaves only (should nearly fill a pint jug with leaves)</p><p>five teaspoons of freshly toasted pine nuts</p><p>three or four cloves of garlic</p><p>teaspoon salt</p><p>about one cup of vegetable oil (preferably olive oil) and have more in reserve</p><p></p><p>Blend all this until smooth. It should be runny, not thick. Now stir in -</p><p>about 50 g grated Parmesan cheese.</p><p>Pour sauce into small jars, and freeze what you don't immediately need. This sauce will keep for weeks in the fridge. Just before using, stir in the puddle of oil collected on top. If there is no puddle of oil, you didn't use enough oil and the sauce is likely to go mouldy much more quickly. You can add more oil at this stage, to make sure it's covered.</p><p></p><p>DISASTER ALTERNATIVE: if someone is allergic to pine nuts, substitute other nuts to which they are not allergic. Cashews are delicious. If necessary, omit the nuts.</p><p>You can also skip toasting the nuts, but it's easy to do and tastes better. To toast the nuts, do it in a dry pan on a hot plate. Alternatively, spread them on an oven tray on a low heat or under the grill. Watch them carefully - they can quickly go from pale to burnt.</p><p></p><p></p><p>BASIC ITALIAN MEAT SAUCE</p><p>This is the basic brew from which many recipes can be made. Try cooking a large batch, and freezing individual quantities for later use in a variety of recipes. A good DISASTER ALTERNATIVE recipe.</p><p></p><p>INGREDIENTS:</p><p> 250g mince</p><p> one large onion</p><p> 2 cloves garlic, crushed</p><p> 3-4 tablespoons of tomato paste</p><p> dash of tomato sauce</p><p> 2 bay leaves</p><p> sprigs of oregano, rosemary (or use a pinch of mixed herbs)</p><p> red cooking wine </p><p></p><p>TO COOK:</p><p> Fry the onion and garlic over high heat until golden. Add mince, and saute until brown. Turn heat down to low, add tomato paste, tomato sauce, herbs and half a glass of red wine. Simmer for ten minutes. Note: it is best to add the wine with the herbs, stir quickly, then drop the lid on immediately. This will best help the wine blend the flavours. Keep covered and allow to simmer gently for about half an hour, or until you're confident it's done.</p><p></p><p></p><p>WHITE SAUCE (aka Bechamel sauce) This is a recipe done by eye, rather than quantity. While no measuring is needed, my description may be indaequate, so I will include quantities for those who need them.</p><p></p><p>INGREDIENTS:</p><p>butter or margarine (about 2oz or 60 g)</p><p>plain flour (about 1/2 cup)</p><p>salt to taste (about 1 teaspoon)</p><p>pint of milk</p><p></p><p>TO COOK:</p><p>Melt butter in saucepan on medium heat. Add flour, and combine to form a roux. (Technical term for those who want to know.) The mixture should crumble a little as the spoon passes through, but return to a bubbling thick paste almost immediately. Allow it to cook for a minute or so - the depth of colour is related to cooking time. For chicken dishes, minimum cooking time is needed, while for lasagne more time is OK.</p><p>Add milk, and stir to blend quickly. If this is difficult, use beaters. Mixture should be smooth before it boils, or you will have lumps. Once blended, keep stirring gently in a figure eight motion until the mixture thickens. If it begins to bubble, it is as thick as it's going to get. If too thick, blend in a little more milk. If too thin (horror!) mix a paste of flour and milk (or water) and add gently to mixture, blending in quickly. When sauce begins to bubble or is thickened satisfactorily, turn off heat, but leave saucepan on hot plate for residual heat to finish sauce.</p><p>ALLERGY ALTERNATIVE:</p><p>Butter is not essential, any oil or fat will do. Milk need not be cow's milk, and you can even substitute water. The result isn't the same, but is adequate for most recipes.</p><p>DISASTER ALTERNATIVE:</p><p>Use water, then add the equivalent amount of powdered milk. It saves using up your supply of fresh milk, and will taste the same. </p><p>If the sauce goes lumpy, don't strain it, beat it. Hand held blender is great, but egg-beaters or blender will do.</p><p></p><p>CHEESE SAUCE</p><p>To one quantity of White Sauce, add sliced or grated cheese to taste. A tablespoon of Parmesan cheese will greatly enhance the cheese flavour also.</p><p></p><p>Hollandaise Sauce</p><p>This requires a little careful planning and some pre-preparation can make the job quicker and easier.</p><p>Basic Hollandaise is a smooth, creamy blend of partly-cooked egg yolks, melted butter sharpened by something acidic in the form of lemon juice. I don't add salt to this because if you use standard butter (instead of unsalted) it has enough salt in it. If you want, you can add pepper. I don't.</p><p></p><p>Ingredients</p><p>6 egg yolks (room temperature)</p><p>60 ml lemon juice</p><p></p><p>250 g block of butter</p><p></p><p>Before you begin, prepare a water bath to use in the microwave oven. I get a large dinner plate and put a 4 litre ice cream container on it. Choose a 1 litre jug that will sit neatly inside the ice cream container.</p><p>In the 1 litre jug, put your egg yolks and lemon juice. Whisk (using stick blender).</p><p></p><p>Meanwhile in 250 ml jug or larger, melt the butter in the microwave. When the butter is melted and hot, pour it into the egg yolk mixture in a thin stream, whisking constantly as you go using the stick blender. This will partly cook the egg.</p><p></p><p>Now put boiling water into the ice cream container and carefully lower the jug with sauce (1 litre jug) into the ice cream container. Don't let any water get into the sauce. Microwave the complex (that's why you put it all on a dinner plate) for 2 minutes on medication. Take it out and whisk it with a fork to ensure it's evenly heated through. It might need another two minutes on medication - keep going, whisking thoroughly each time you stop. How long it needs depends on your microwave oven.</p><p></p><p>If you overheat it without stirring it, it will &#8216;split' and look curdled. </p><p></p><p>Bearnaise Sauce option</p><p>For this, use the method for Hollandaise but before you start, make your vinegar preparation. This can be done days/weeks ahead if necessary.</p><p>Tarragon vinegar needs to be concentrated to really boost the flavour. It is to be used, ml for ml, instead of the lemon juice in the Hollandaise.</p><p></p><p>To make tarragon vinegar, I get a good white wine vinegar or cider vinegar and decant some from the full bottle. I then stuff some fresh-picked tarragon into the bottle and let it steep for weeks to months. I've kept this for a year and the flavour is amazing. Tarragon is an annual in that it dies back every winter, but a perennial in that if you leave the pot alone it will grow back thick and lush next spring. It looks dead. It is, in a way. But the roots are alive and even in a snowy winter country, it is dormant under the soil. When it starts to grow in spring it grows fast. It also looks good in the garden, especially if you keep cutting it to use it, to make it grow bushy.</p><p></p><p>For the Bearnaise sauce, you need to reduce the tarragon vinegar down to half volume. For the above recipe quantities, I pour 120 ml of tarragon vinegar into a small jug (either the one I later use to melt the butter, or the 1 litre jug), add a chopped spring onion and a few sprigs of chopped tarragon and then boil it in the microwave on HIGH. I put the jug into another container to catch any overflow, because any overflow must be saved and used.</p><p>This can be prepared ahead - you can boil down a larger quantity of tarragon vinegar and keep what you don't use in the fridge. It will be the colour of tea.</p><p></p><p>To prepare - follow the steps as for Hollandaise Sauce, substituting tarragon vinegar for the lemon juice. The vinegar must be room temperature before you proceed or it will cook the eggs and curdle them. If you have the vinegar already prepared, you can have a batch of this sauce ready in about 10 minutes. </p><p>Serve it over steak, steamed asparagus, baked potato, even in an omelette. To store leftovers I let it set firm in the fridge, roll it into a log and keep the cling-wrapped log in the freezer. To serve from here, I cut a disc off the roll and let the heat of the food melt it back to a creamy sauce (on steak or asparagus).</p><p></p><p>I've never had it go &#8216;off'. It usually gets eaten first, but we have kept it for weeks or longer.</p><p></p><p>Enjoy!</p><p></p><p>Now for GNOCCHI</p><p>As with all lazy recipes, this can be very useful. However, this cannot be prepared ahead of time, so start small. Make several small batches rather than one large one. You may find yourself wanting to take a break. Be warned - never leave uncooked gnocchi dough in the bowl or you will watch it slowly turn to a grey, unpleasant mush. Adding extra flour will only result in small balls of floury, powdery dumplings instead of light, fluffy gnocchi.</p><p></p><p>Ingredients</p><p>egg</p><p>salt</p><p>mashed potato</p><p>flour</p><p></p><p>For good gnocchi allow one egg and quarter tsp salt for each half cup of mashed potato. Don't make up more than three eggs worth at one time.</p><p></p><p>Method</p><p>Using a fork, mix egg, salt and potato together. It will look yellow and sloppy, like over-buttered mashed potato. When mixed, add the flour, about half a cup for each large egg. Err on the side of caution, because gnocchi dough can quickly become dry and crumbly. It needs to be a sticky ball. Sprinkle more flour over the ball. Sprinkle more flour generously over work surface.</p><p>With spatula, Scoop off a slice from the dough ball and drop it onto the work surface. With floured hands, roll the dough into a long sausage shape, keeping the surface only well floured. Make the dough sausage about 1 cm in diameter.</p><p>With clean spatula cut 1 cm slices from the dough sausage. Toss these pieces in flour then using the fork, gently press to flatten. Roll the pieces from the fork with fingers, to form a gently folded over shape with the mark of fork tines on the outside. Place each little dumpling on a foam tray or silicone sheet.</p><p>Meanwhile, get a pot of salted water on to boil. When it is boiling well, drop in the raw gnocchi. They will initially sink then begin to float. Let them cook until they have floated on the surface for about thirty seconds, then scoop them out with a slotted spoon. </p><p>Put the cooked gnocchi into a serving bowl immediately, and add butter or sauce to prevent sticking.</p><p>Gnocchi is very filling but those who love it are never satisfied with small serves.</p><p></p><p>Pasta sauce options</p><p>See sauce recipes above. Try Basic Bolognese Sauce; Pesto Sauce; Napolitan Sauce or anything else you fancy.</p><p></p><p>Gnocchi Lasagne</p><p>In a large casserole dish place a layer of buttered (or tomatoed), cooked gnocchi. Cover this with a thin layer of Basic Bolognese Sauce then finish with Cheese Sauce. Bake in a moderate oven until golden on top.</p><p></p><p>The gnocchi lasagne can be prepared ahead of time, it's also a really good healthy meal for a kid. Plenty of protein, it can be very low fat (especially if you let the meat sauce cool after cooking and then pick out any fat that sets). THis is really great comfort food, too. It's a recipe that can be played with toadjust it to what you like.</p><p></p><p>Gnocchi looks nothing like worms. Kids either love it or hate it. In our family, only easy child 2/difficult child 2 dislikes it. The others would kill for it. </p><p>Home-made gnocchi is also a budget-beater. I've made it in weeks where we've over-spent on the housekeeping budget and we need to cut back. The kids never knew that they were "missing out" because for them, it's a treat (except for easy child 2/difficult child 2, of course).</p><p></p><p>Marg</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Marguerite, post: 238160, member: 1991"] How is he with gnocchi? And how are you with making food from scrtch? For example, easy child & mother in law can't handle raw meat, especially chicken. So when giving recipes to them, I have to forget about any recipes which require them to handle raw meat. Home-made gnocchi is a great feed for a carb junkie, but because it has egg in it as well, it's also very nourishing. Shop-bought gnocchi is ridiculously expensive considering the ingredients, and it's also nowhere near as nice. The home-made stuff is easy (when you have the knack) and you can get very quick with it. It's also fun for kids to make (or help with) from very, very young. As with a lot of pasta, what you put on it is what matters. If you use sauces which are low-fat, you get an ideal feed for a teenage (or almost teenage) boy. I'll now give you the basic sauces from my collection: SOME SAUCE RECIPES FOR LATER SHORT CUTS These are some very basic and often used recipes, many of which can be made ahead in bulk and frozen in small quantities. If you want to make them fresh, you can take a rest break when each sauce you need is made. If you have a day when you have the time and the energy, you can cook meals for a week. PESTO SAUCE This is only if you or your family like the stuff - make it when the herbs are available, and freeze it. It can be used for a range of recipes, or even whenever you think of some extra use for it yourself! INGREDIENTS AND TO MAKE: Assemble in blender - A large bunch of fresh basil, leaves only (should nearly fill a pint jug with leaves) five teaspoons of freshly toasted pine nuts three or four cloves of garlic teaspoon salt about one cup of vegetable oil (preferably olive oil) and have more in reserve Blend all this until smooth. It should be runny, not thick. Now stir in - about 50 g grated Parmesan cheese. Pour sauce into small jars, and freeze what you don't immediately need. This sauce will keep for weeks in the fridge. Just before using, stir in the puddle of oil collected on top. If there is no puddle of oil, you didn't use enough oil and the sauce is likely to go mouldy much more quickly. You can add more oil at this stage, to make sure it's covered. DISASTER ALTERNATIVE: if someone is allergic to pine nuts, substitute other nuts to which they are not allergic. Cashews are delicious. If necessary, omit the nuts. You can also skip toasting the nuts, but it's easy to do and tastes better. To toast the nuts, do it in a dry pan on a hot plate. Alternatively, spread them on an oven tray on a low heat or under the grill. Watch them carefully - they can quickly go from pale to burnt. BASIC ITALIAN MEAT SAUCE This is the basic brew from which many recipes can be made. Try cooking a large batch, and freezing individual quantities for later use in a variety of recipes. A good DISASTER ALTERNATIVE recipe. INGREDIENTS: 250g mince one large onion 2 cloves garlic, crushed 3-4 tablespoons of tomato paste dash of tomato sauce 2 bay leaves sprigs of oregano, rosemary (or use a pinch of mixed herbs) red cooking wine TO COOK: Fry the onion and garlic over high heat until golden. Add mince, and saute until brown. Turn heat down to low, add tomato paste, tomato sauce, herbs and half a glass of red wine. Simmer for ten minutes. Note: it is best to add the wine with the herbs, stir quickly, then drop the lid on immediately. This will best help the wine blend the flavours. Keep covered and allow to simmer gently for about half an hour, or until you're confident it's done. WHITE SAUCE (aka Bechamel sauce) This is a recipe done by eye, rather than quantity. While no measuring is needed, my description may be indaequate, so I will include quantities for those who need them. INGREDIENTS: butter or margarine (about 2oz or 60 g) plain flour (about 1/2 cup) salt to taste (about 1 teaspoon) pint of milk TO COOK: Melt butter in saucepan on medium heat. Add flour, and combine to form a roux. (Technical term for those who want to know.) The mixture should crumble a little as the spoon passes through, but return to a bubbling thick paste almost immediately. Allow it to cook for a minute or so - the depth of colour is related to cooking time. For chicken dishes, minimum cooking time is needed, while for lasagne more time is OK. Add milk, and stir to blend quickly. If this is difficult, use beaters. Mixture should be smooth before it boils, or you will have lumps. Once blended, keep stirring gently in a figure eight motion until the mixture thickens. If it begins to bubble, it is as thick as it's going to get. If too thick, blend in a little more milk. If too thin (horror!) mix a paste of flour and milk (or water) and add gently to mixture, blending in quickly. When sauce begins to bubble or is thickened satisfactorily, turn off heat, but leave saucepan on hot plate for residual heat to finish sauce. ALLERGY ALTERNATIVE: Butter is not essential, any oil or fat will do. Milk need not be cow's milk, and you can even substitute water. The result isn't the same, but is adequate for most recipes. DISASTER ALTERNATIVE: Use water, then add the equivalent amount of powdered milk. It saves using up your supply of fresh milk, and will taste the same. If the sauce goes lumpy, don't strain it, beat it. Hand held blender is great, but egg-beaters or blender will do. CHEESE SAUCE To one quantity of White Sauce, add sliced or grated cheese to taste. A tablespoon of Parmesan cheese will greatly enhance the cheese flavour also. Hollandaise Sauce This requires a little careful planning and some pre-preparation can make the job quicker and easier. Basic Hollandaise is a smooth, creamy blend of partly-cooked egg yolks, melted butter sharpened by something acidic in the form of lemon juice. I don't add salt to this because if you use standard butter (instead of unsalted) it has enough salt in it. If you want, you can add pepper. I don't. Ingredients 6 egg yolks (room temperature) 60 ml lemon juice 250 g block of butter Before you begin, prepare a water bath to use in the microwave oven. I get a large dinner plate and put a 4 litre ice cream container on it. Choose a 1 litre jug that will sit neatly inside the ice cream container. In the 1 litre jug, put your egg yolks and lemon juice. Whisk (using stick blender). Meanwhile in 250 ml jug or larger, melt the butter in the microwave. When the butter is melted and hot, pour it into the egg yolk mixture in a thin stream, whisking constantly as you go using the stick blender. This will partly cook the egg. Now put boiling water into the ice cream container and carefully lower the jug with sauce (1 litre jug) into the ice cream container. Don't let any water get into the sauce. Microwave the complex (that's why you put it all on a dinner plate) for 2 minutes on medication. Take it out and whisk it with a fork to ensure it's evenly heated through. It might need another two minutes on medication - keep going, whisking thoroughly each time you stop. How long it needs depends on your microwave oven. If you overheat it without stirring it, it will ‘split' and look curdled. Bearnaise Sauce option For this, use the method for Hollandaise but before you start, make your vinegar preparation. This can be done days/weeks ahead if necessary. Tarragon vinegar needs to be concentrated to really boost the flavour. It is to be used, ml for ml, instead of the lemon juice in the Hollandaise. To make tarragon vinegar, I get a good white wine vinegar or cider vinegar and decant some from the full bottle. I then stuff some fresh-picked tarragon into the bottle and let it steep for weeks to months. I've kept this for a year and the flavour is amazing. Tarragon is an annual in that it dies back every winter, but a perennial in that if you leave the pot alone it will grow back thick and lush next spring. It looks dead. It is, in a way. But the roots are alive and even in a snowy winter country, it is dormant under the soil. When it starts to grow in spring it grows fast. It also looks good in the garden, especially if you keep cutting it to use it, to make it grow bushy. For the Bearnaise sauce, you need to reduce the tarragon vinegar down to half volume. For the above recipe quantities, I pour 120 ml of tarragon vinegar into a small jug (either the one I later use to melt the butter, or the 1 litre jug), add a chopped spring onion and a few sprigs of chopped tarragon and then boil it in the microwave on HIGH. I put the jug into another container to catch any overflow, because any overflow must be saved and used. This can be prepared ahead - you can boil down a larger quantity of tarragon vinegar and keep what you don't use in the fridge. It will be the colour of tea. To prepare - follow the steps as for Hollandaise Sauce, substituting tarragon vinegar for the lemon juice. The vinegar must be room temperature before you proceed or it will cook the eggs and curdle them. If you have the vinegar already prepared, you can have a batch of this sauce ready in about 10 minutes. Serve it over steak, steamed asparagus, baked potato, even in an omelette. To store leftovers I let it set firm in the fridge, roll it into a log and keep the cling-wrapped log in the freezer. To serve from here, I cut a disc off the roll and let the heat of the food melt it back to a creamy sauce (on steak or asparagus). I've never had it go ‘off'. It usually gets eaten first, but we have kept it for weeks or longer. Enjoy! Now for GNOCCHI As with all lazy recipes, this can be very useful. However, this cannot be prepared ahead of time, so start small. Make several small batches rather than one large one. You may find yourself wanting to take a break. Be warned - never leave uncooked gnocchi dough in the bowl or you will watch it slowly turn to a grey, unpleasant mush. Adding extra flour will only result in small balls of floury, powdery dumplings instead of light, fluffy gnocchi. Ingredients egg salt mashed potato flour For good gnocchi allow one egg and quarter tsp salt for each half cup of mashed potato. Don't make up more than three eggs worth at one time. Method Using a fork, mix egg, salt and potato together. It will look yellow and sloppy, like over-buttered mashed potato. When mixed, add the flour, about half a cup for each large egg. Err on the side of caution, because gnocchi dough can quickly become dry and crumbly. It needs to be a sticky ball. Sprinkle more flour over the ball. Sprinkle more flour generously over work surface. With spatula, Scoop off a slice from the dough ball and drop it onto the work surface. With floured hands, roll the dough into a long sausage shape, keeping the surface only well floured. Make the dough sausage about 1 cm in diameter. With clean spatula cut 1 cm slices from the dough sausage. Toss these pieces in flour then using the fork, gently press to flatten. Roll the pieces from the fork with fingers, to form a gently folded over shape with the mark of fork tines on the outside. Place each little dumpling on a foam tray or silicone sheet. Meanwhile, get a pot of salted water on to boil. When it is boiling well, drop in the raw gnocchi. They will initially sink then begin to float. Let them cook until they have floated on the surface for about thirty seconds, then scoop them out with a slotted spoon. Put the cooked gnocchi into a serving bowl immediately, and add butter or sauce to prevent sticking. Gnocchi is very filling but those who love it are never satisfied with small serves. Pasta sauce options See sauce recipes above. Try Basic Bolognese Sauce; Pesto Sauce; Napolitan Sauce or anything else you fancy. Gnocchi Lasagne In a large casserole dish place a layer of buttered (or tomatoed), cooked gnocchi. Cover this with a thin layer of Basic Bolognese Sauce then finish with Cheese Sauce. Bake in a moderate oven until golden on top. The gnocchi lasagne can be prepared ahead of time, it's also a really good healthy meal for a kid. Plenty of protein, it can be very low fat (especially if you let the meat sauce cool after cooking and then pick out any fat that sets). THis is really great comfort food, too. It's a recipe that can be played with toadjust it to what you like. Gnocchi looks nothing like worms. Kids either love it or hate it. In our family, only easy child 2/difficult child 2 dislikes it. The others would kill for it. Home-made gnocchi is also a budget-beater. I've made it in weeks where we've over-spent on the housekeeping budget and we need to cut back. The kids never knew that they were "missing out" because for them, it's a treat (except for easy child 2/difficult child 2, of course). Marg [/QUOTE]
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