I set out this week to make this recipe for gnocchi with mushroom ragu — the meal was actually inspired by a package of gnocchi I got a killer deal on last week, so I used store-bought instead of the homemade version in that recipe. Homemade gnocchi always seems like an unnecessary pain. If I’m going to waste some calories on empty potato starch, it had better be becasue it makes for an easy weeknight meal and only takes 5 minutes to cook! I’ll save labor-intensive for if I ever decide to make my own fettucine.
The recipe for the mushroom ragu is so dang simple I don’t really know what I can say about it. I bought a pound of delicious mushrooms at the Portland Fruit Company, sauteed them with butter and garlic and a teaspoon of homemade rub that was a Christmas gift from one of our friends this year, then added wine and stock (didn’t have any thyme), and a few teaspoons of corn starch to thicken it up. Then topped it off with some fresh lemon juice and cream!
A pound of mushrooms really doesn’t make a whole lot of sauce once it cooks down — just enough to liberally cover two small servings of gnocchi, which was only about half the package — the rest will get turned into something else later in the week! Oh, but after cooking the gnocchi in boiling water and straining them, I did fry them up in some coconut oil on the stovetop so they were nice and toothy.
This would never have been enough food for Jesse “I’m a growing boy” Hanson’s dinner, so fortunately I had pulled this recipe for chickpea crepes from my Pinterest to try out for this week. I would never think of crepes as being particularly filling, but since these are made entirely with chickpea flour, they actually packed a pretty filling punch and made for great little handheld shells in which to make mini DIY salad tacos.
The crepes are super easy. You just mix up all the following ingredients in a bowl, and let it sit while you prep the rest of the meal:
- 1 1/3c chickpea flour
- 1c water (I added more so that the pancakes would be thinner)
- 1/2 jalapeno
- 1 inch ginger, grated
- 1c chopped cilantro
- 2t salt
- 1t cayenne
After whisking those together and letting it sit, I added more water until it was the consistency I wanted — like pancake batter. I heated up some coconut oil in our skillet and made these pancakes one ladle-ful at a time, letting them cook most of the way through on one side, then flipping them momentarily to finish them off. Our skillet has a pretty nice patina at this point so I didn’t have to re-oil the pan more than once or twice.
By the end, I had a big plate full of these protein-y, filling, spicy, savory crepes, which were served DIY-style, each of us adding our own ratio of salad greens, leftover black beans, green onions, and dressing (choices were lemon-tahini-yogurt, or garlic-dijon-vinaigrette) as the filling and eating them taco-style with our hands. Delish!
