You had me at pan-fried gnocchi and cheese pull. You could get away with it as a midweek meal seen as it involves time in the oven but that depends if your tired self can wait for this deliciousness. If not you could easily just mix it all into the frying pan and serve it up quicker!

This makes two hearty portions so if you don’t want to store it and have the rest tomorrow half the recipe.

Ingredients:

• Chicken breast, chopped
• Bacon, chopped
• Half a bell pepper
• Red chilli, finely chopped
• Cherry tomatoes, halved
• Spring onions, sliced
• Mushrooms, sliced
• Mozzarella, sliced
• Two tbsp Cottage cheese
• Two heaped tsp Soft cheese
• Potato gnocchi, I use pre made ones and only half the pack at that (yes, even though I have done a gnocchi making course)
• Two tsp Pesto

Method:

1. Pan fry the gnocchi in a splash of oil. Once the edges start to crisp up
2. Add in the chicken and bacon and stir occasionally to ensure this is all cooked through. I tend to do it so the bacon starts to crisp slightly
3. Add in the mushrooms, spring onion, red chilli and green pepper and let cook a little but not enough to make the peppers soft
4. In a glass, oven friendly dish, add the halved cherry tomatoes, cottage cheese, soft cheese, pesto and half the mozzarella
5. Mix in the gnocchi mix and ensure everything is well combined before flattening it out and topping with the remaining mozzarella cheese
6. Put it in a preheated oven at 200c for 15 minutes
7. Serve and enjoy!

Storage And Eating Tips

I live by myself and this meal gives two good portions. When it is cooled off I cover the glass dish and put it in the fridge. Whilst you could then take this out and put it into the oven I would not recommend for one strong reason; The bit where the mix no longer is will keep cooking and make this dish a nightmare to clean. Whilst it might create more dishes I would recommend transferring it to another one if you wish to do it this way.

You can of course give this a microwave as well but I cannot say I ever have. Mainly because I like my gnocchi to remain slightly crispy on the edge and I would be scared of a microwave making too much steam and sort of undoing that. Again if you are okay with that then go right ahead.

If you aren’t a huge pesto fan then you don’t have to put that in here just choose some herbs and spices that work for you instead. In the same way as I put cottage cheese in here purely because I needed to finish the cottage cheese off but you could add extra soft cheese instead.

Also don’t think you have to use the proper bacon rashers for this. I get a bag of bacon trimmings from the local store which is so much cheaper because it’s just offcuts. When it’s getting chopped and cooked into something anyway we might as well save some money and keep them going with finding ways to sell what would otherwise be waste.