Smoky Bacon and Tomato Gnocchi with Zesty Green Bean Side

I’m hosting September’s round of Extra Veg for Utterly Scrummy’s Michelle and Fuss Free Helen, to promote eating an extra portion of vegetables with each meal. September is harvest time, so is perfect for enjoying a variety of locally grown produce.

My dad recently visited, and as usual stuffed some goodies from his beloved vegetable patch into his suitcase. This time it was a clutch of green beans. It’s times like this I miss our allotment as I remember the abundant supply of beans. My mum’s green bean chutney recipe would be dusted off and industrious veg prep would begin!

However this time I fancied rustling up a tasty side dish to go with some gnocchi that was lurking at the back of the fridge.

So I came up with a simple recipe, adorning the gnocchi in a robust and tangy tomato sauce made with nuggets of smoky bacon, green olives and roasted peppers. Big flavours and a pleasingly chunky texture, it’s the kind of 30 minute sauce you can make a big batch of and then freeze until you need it. Ready-to-boil gnocchi is essential for easy weeknight suppers, so I always have a packet in the house. It’s lazy food, but good food.

The greens were lightly blanched in boiling salted water, drained and then tossed with olive oil, sea salt and lemon zest followed by a liberal scattering of salted roasted almonds. Oh-so-simple… oh-so-good. Tastes zingy, fresh and you really could sit and eat the whole bowl and forget yourself entirely. Boy do I love green beans!

So you’ll be wanting the recipe then…

Smoky Bacon and tomato Gnocchi with Zesty Green Bean Side

Serves: 4
Prep time: 15 mins
Cooking time: 25 mins

Ingredients

For the Gnocchi
1 tbsp olive oil
1 small red onion, finely diced
100g smoked streaky bacon, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1 tbsp tomato puree
75g roasted pepper, chopped
75g green olives, chopped
1 pinch paprika
500g passata

For the Zesty Greens
400g green beans (mix up the varieties)
1 lemon, zest only
olive oil
sea salt flakes
50g salted roasted almonds

Instructions

1. Heat the olive oil in a heavy-bottomed frying pan, then fry the bacon bits until they start to colour and release their fat. At this point add the diced onion with a pinch of sea salt and soften for a few minutes before adding the garlic, tomato puree, roasted peppers, olives and paprika. Give it all a good stir for another minute and then add the passata. Allow to simmer for around 15 minutes, giving it the occasional stir. Turn off the heat.

2. Meanwhile bring two large pans of salted water to the boil. Firstly lightly blanche the beans for around 3-4 mins, drain and rinse with a little cold water and then toss in a bowl with the lemon zest, a glug of olive oil and a pinch of sea salt. Scatter with the roasted almonds.

3. Cook the gnocchi for a couple of minutes until it starts to rise to the surface, drain and then toss into the tomato sauce and turn out onto a dish to serve with the zesty green beans.

 

Now it’s over to YOU to get creative with your veggies and share your recipes with me!

Taking up the Extra Veg challenge means that you get all the extra vitamins and nutrients from extra helpings of vegetables and the veggies help fill you up so you eat less helpings of unhealthy foods.

To participate each month all you need to do is:

Simply blog about any recipe or idea where you eat an extra portion of vegetables.

There are a few rules:

Please link to the current host – Feeding Boys, Michelle Utterly Scrummy and Fuss Free Helen

Tweet using #ExtraVeg and mention @utterlyscrummy and @fussfreeflavours along with me the host @cookingkt

Make a little time to check out the other entries – commenting and sharing spreads that loving feeling 🙂

Closing date of the challenge is 28th of the month

By entering you are agreeing to let us use an image from your entry on this site, and to pin to Pinterest

Please be respectful of other people’s copyright

But feel free to send your recipe to as many other blog events as you like!