Recipe for sausage gnocchi bake below. You’re going to love it.

OK, so only a quick one tonight – and I’m not entirely sure we haven’t already posted this. But look, it doesn’t matter. It was wonderful, and frankly you can forgive me any old shite when I’ve covered it in melted cheese. Half of  our dishes come out of the oven looking like a burnt knee, but through the wonders of careful photography and judicious cropping, you just never know. Perhaps if I presented it on one of those fancy Slimming World plates you can buy, where someone has scribbled all over a nice white plate with some felt-tips to show ‘what you should eat’ – a concept immediately defeated when you then proceed to cover the plate with your dinner, I presume. I don’t understand the concept of drawing out ‘what I should eat’ on my plate. It’s the foodie equivalent to scratching the TV guide into the glass of your television screen.

Actually, I saw one of these plates advertised on a facebook group the other day and asked what she meant by ‘for show only’, given I was envisioning someone having it on their mantlepiece like a decorative clock or one of those god-awful ‘jumping dolphins rendered in plaster of paris’ statues that everyone had in the nineties. She advised me that it meant it couldn’t be washed or indeed, eaten off. To me, that breaks the two fundamental rules of a plate. It’s definitely not something you’d keep for best. 

Before anyone starts, I’m not knocking the lass for being entrepreneurial and flogging a few plates – all the very best and good luck to her! Nothing but chipperness for those who make their own way in the world.

But honestly, Paul, if you’re reading this, I’m telling you now: if I get a decorated plate, bloody chalk-heart board or a food diary with a cupcake and twattish inspirational message on the front for Christmas, I’m going to bite your cock off and set it on fire.

Speaking of nonsense items that I’d sooner throw into the sun than have in my house, we seem to be locked in a battle of wills with our local Kleeneze distributor. Every few weeks he pushes a tatalogue of nonsense through our door with the passive aggressive note that he’ll be back within a few days to pick it up. We immediately put it somewhere out of sight so we don’t succumb to temptation and end up buying all manner of plastic shite for the kitchen or a portable urinal. A portable urinal for men. Haway. The WORLD is a portable urinal when you’re a guy. Fair enough a shewee allows a lady to have a dainty tinkle instead of grunting around a ditch squatting like a shitting rhino, but a male version? I once, in my more athletic and skinny days, pissed out of a moving car because we were late for a ferry. Don’t worry, we weren’t boarding the ferry at the time. And I wasn’t driving. Dangerous when I think about it – an errant branch whipping into my knob at seventy miles an hour could have really changed how my life turned out. 

Anyway, he always ends up knocking on the door and asking for his tatalogue back, and thus begins a hunt for the offending item and a request that he doesn’t deliver to us anymore. But he never listens. Each time we spend a bit longer looking for it, but he still doesn’t get the message. I’m not enough of a bastard to rip the catalogue up (plus our shredder is on the blink – I wonder if Kleeneze sell those awful scissors with four blades that ‘replace a shredder…maybe I should look…just once) – after all, it’s someone’s business, but I’m telling you now, if it continues, I’ll be putting a VERY passive aggressive terse note on their facebook page. It’s the very British thing to do. He needs to be careful – remember we’re always naked in this house (seriously, it’s like the video for Sweet Harmony by The Beloved viewed through a heat shimmer), next time he does it I’m going to put the offending tatalogue in my bumcrack and poke it around the door.

Ah well. Listen, here’s tonight’s recipe, before I get carried away. This makes enough for four if you’re serving it with a side, or two geet big fatties like us.

to make sausage gnocchi bake you’ll need:

• 6 sausages, casings removed (you can use the Slimming World sausages if you MUST, but why not save them for what they’re really for – sucking every last bit of moisture from the air and summoning evil? Bloody awful things. GO TO MUSCLEFOOD INSTEAD MAN)
• 400g gnocchi (6 syns, so between four, 1.5 syns)
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• tin of chopped tomatoes
• 1 tsp mixed herbs
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• 75g Quark
• 140g light mozarella ball (HexA x 2)

to make sausage gnocchi bake you will need:

• heat a large non-stick frying pan over a medium-high heat, using a bit of oil or your Frylight
• add the gnocchi and fry gently until the sides are golden – keep them moving though, they can catch easily. This will take about eight minutes or so, then remove from the pan and set aside 
• in the same pan, add the garlic and the sausage meat and cook until browned – remember to keep breaking it up (a masher works well for this) and then remove from the pan and set aside – I like to put it in the same bowl/plate as the gnocchi to keep it warm
• in the same pan again add the diced tomatoes, mixed herbs, salt and pepper and cook for about seven minutes, stirring occasionally until it’s thickened down
• reduce the heat and add the quark to the pan, as well as the gnocchi and sausage meat and stir well to mix
• scatter the mozzarella over the top and keep on the heat until it has melted – you can also put it under the grill for a little bit if your pan can handle it to get it nicely browned and bubbling
• serve

DONE. If you’re a fan of gnocchi and you’re as surprised as we were that you can have it on Slimming World, why not give our amazing ham, cheese and pea gnocchi dish a go? OH YES.