Well unless you’re like me and it’s not as straightforward as that, I’m gluten free and have recently been diagnosed with a condition called Gastro Paresis. I tried to fight this for a long, long time, refusing to give in to the fact I couldn’t enjoy some of my favourite foods and I needed to completely rethink my whole diet and lifestyle.

You see I love Italian food but to eat it just isn’t worth how ill I will be. As much as I want pasta and that slice of pizza, is it worth being sick or a hospital trip? Well, that obviously depends on where it’s from…? But realistically sadly I can’t enjoy a lot of the foods I used to love. So now we have to find new ways and different recipes to try and recreate ‘Charlotte friendly’ meals that still are as tasty as the originals and you know what, we aren’t doing a bad job so far.

Take this tasty Spinach and Ricotta Gnocchi creation, on first look this seems like it’ll be too tricky and fiddly and I’m all for ease and speed when I’m hungry, but surprisingly this is pretty simple. Also when you do make it, it looks impressive so you can sit back and take all the credit. Perfect. Doesn’t taste too bad either.

What you’ll need

– 200g spinach (frozen or fresh)
– 150g ricotta
– 85g gluten free flour
– 1 garlic clove
– 2 eggs
– 100g parmesan cheese
– parsley

What you’ll need to do

1. Pour boiling water over your spinach in a large bowl and leave until it’s wilted (or defrosted) then drain thoroughly. Once cool wrap in a tea towel and squeeze out as much water as possible then thinly chop
2. Put the spinach, parsley, chopped garlic, ricotta, gf flour, eggs, cheese into a large bowl and season well then stir until everything is mixed
3. Using wet hands squish the mixture into little walnut sized balls and then refrigerate for 30mins
4. Bring a pan to boil and reduce the heat down and then carefully drop some of the balls in. They will sink and when they rise to the top give them another few minutes then remove.
5. Your Gnocchi is now ready to go. It’s that simple.

 

The only thing now is deciding how you want to serve them, we kept it simple and just drizzled some of our Garlic oil over the balls. There’s enough flavour in them you don’t really need much else, well apart from a simple tomato and red onion salad to finish it off.

These are so tasty and I’m sure they can be played about using different ingredients, if you don’t fancy a bowl, then these are ideal as a side, little starter, a topping for salads, even a snack bite. More importantly, they’re Gluten free and the Spinach is rich in antioxidants. Always a bonus.

And I finally got my bowl of my pasta after all.