Basil gnocchi with tomato sauce

Because I've got such a hectic couple of weeks coming up, I've made a list of all the things I intend to cook between now and when Ocado replenish my fridge next week to make sure I have all the ingredients I need.  On the menu this week we will hopefully have (not in any particular order) cauliflower and stilton soup, @BridestockBride's loaded potato soup, chocolate mint bars, lemon curd (practice for the christmas hampers) and...erm...well I got stuck at around five, but I'm sure I can pull something out of the bag with the random fridge contents.

Giant gnocchi!

The trouble is when you're only cooking for one - I've seriously given up trying to feed the other two anything different, unless it incorporates chocolate - you end up having to buy huge packets of things and eating the same thing for days on end.  Not much help if you're trying to try a new recipe every day. Take the red potatoes for example.  Because I've still not found time to get to the fabulous Allington Farm Shop, where you can buy as many or as few potatoes as you need, I'm now saddled with a huge 2.5kg of Red Rooster potatoes.  Given that a bag of four baking potatoes can last three months in this house, I will probably end up roasting the rest of the bag for Christmas.

So, in the spirit of economy, I decided to make gnocchi tonight.  It's something that I often buy for the child from the chiller cabinet as it's a really quick and easy tea for her when I get in from work.  I've never tried making my own.  The last time I remember having home made was when I was in fourth year juniors and my mum did a cooking lesson at school for my class.  I didn't like them back then - not sure why - but I figured if a ten-year-old can make them then they can't be that hard.

I found today's recipe on the BBC Food website.  And they are simplicity in themselves.  Stir some flour and seasoning into mash, roll into sausages, cut into bits, stick in boiling water and serve with tomato sauce.  Nearly as quick as opening a packet.  Plus the child got some of the mash (pre-seasoning) for her tea - two birds, one stone.

If I made these again, I would make them less 'rustic' ie smaller as I didn't realise how much they'd swell on cooking.  And I probably wouldn't bother with this particular tomato sauce recipe - as tasty as it was, I'm not sure it was worth an hour's worth of cooking, especially as it was only made with tinned tomatoes, not fresh. There are plenty of other fab tomato sauce recipes that can be made in a quarter of the time.

The recipe can be found here.