Recipe Flash: Baked Spinach Gnocchi with Three Tomatoes

For a Slightly Springy Menu featuring this dish, click here.

Remember back in January when we had all that snow? Well one of those days, Alex was able to stay home-albeit beside his work laptop-and we had a cozy snowday together, at least until I had to venture out to meetings.

For lunch, since, naturally, we weren’t going out, I threw together this quick baked dish of gnocchi and ramped-up tomato sauce. Though we’re hopefully done with snow, this Italian dish is light enough to eat all spring-perhaps in smaller portions-and it fits in well with our all-around-the-world potatoes theme this week.

From my kitchen, albeit small, to yours,

Cara, THE QUARTER-LIFE COOK

**Recipe**

Baked Spinach Gnocchi with Three Tomatoes
Serves 3

Ingredients
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 shallot or 1/2 small onion, diced
5 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
½ pint cherry tomatoes, quartered
1/3 cup sundried tomatoes, cut into slivers
pinch red pepper flakes
½ teaspoon oregano
1 ½ cups canned diced tomatoes
1/3 cup vegetable stock or water
salt
freshly ground pepper
1 pound spinach gnocchi
1 small link hard salami or chorizo, minced (about 1/3 cup)
1/3 cup minced smoked mozzarella (optional)
Grated parmesan, for serving (optional)

Fill a medium, oven-safe Dutch oven with salted water and bring to a boil. Preheat the oven to 400°F.

Cook the onions in the olive oil over medium heat for about 5 minutes, until softened. Add the garlic and cook for 1-2 minutes, until softened but not golden. Add the cherry tomatoes and cook for 4-5 minutes, until they lose their shape. Toss in the sundried tomatoes and cook for another minute. Stir in the spices.

Pour in the tomatoes and the stock and raise the heat to high. Let the sauce simmer for about 5 minutes. Add ¼ teaspoon salt and some freshly ground pepper, then taste for seasonings (sundried tomatoes can be salty so don’t add too much at first).

Cook the gnocchi for just a minute—just to soften it. Drain well and return to the Dutch oven. (If you don’t have a Dutch oven, you can bake the gnocchi in a square Pyrex or ceramic baking dish.) Sprinkle the chorizo and mozzarella over the gnocchi and pour the sauce on top. Toss gently, being sure not to smush any gnocchi.

Bake for 15 minutes, until bubbly. Turn the oven to broil and put the pot on the top rack of the oven for 2-3 minutes, until the gnocchi on top are quite brown.

Serve with parmesan cheese.