We have been getting 4 of our weekly dinner’s delivered for the last couple of months – not cooked meals, but the ingredients with recipe cards to make the meals.

Initially I felt a bit guilty about not doing the planning and the weekly shopping, however I don’t now! Like many other women working full-time, I have a busy and often long day. At the end of which I get home and make the evening meal.

This service has been like having a shopper and planner in the family! It is hard to tear ourselves away from this now – and what was a fortnightly thing has become weekly 🙂

This recipe was great – and I wanted to share it with you as a vegetarian dinner that the children should also enjoy.  The quantities fed two adults dinner plus lunch the next day.

Ingredients

Ricotta Dumplings

• 250g ricotta cheese
• 1 1/2 cups fine breadcrumbs
• 1 tbsp flour
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup finely grated Parmesan cheese

Tomato Sauce

• 1 jar passata or (2 cans of tomatoes whizzed in your food processor)
• 1 tbsp olive  oil
• 1 brown onion, chopped
• 1 carrot, peeled & grated
• 1 tbsp mixed herbs or Italian seasoning
• 1 tbsp sweet chilli sauce
• 1 handful baby spinach, chopped
• 2-3 tbsp finely grated Parmesan cheese

Salad – mix all of the ingredients in a bowl and serve!

• 1 1/2 tsp mayonnaise
• juice of 1/4 – 1/2 lemon – to your taste
• 1/4 cabbage, sliced thinly
• 1 handful baby spinach leaves, sliced thinly

Combine all the ricotta dumpling ingredients and mix well, seasoning with salt & pepper to taste. I popped this in the fridge to firm up a bit before taking a tablespoon of them, and rolling it into small balls. (this quantity made 14 dumplings which was more than enough for two adults!)

Cook the onion and grated carrot in a pot with a splash of olive oil until soft. Add the herbs and cook a minute longer. Add the sauce bringing to the boil b before reducing the heat and simmering for a bout 6 minutes. Add the sweet chilli sauce, basil and spinach, mixing well. Season to your taste.

Pour the tomato sauce mix into a baking dish. Then place the dumplings ‘waist-deep’ into the sauce. Sprinkle over the Parmesan cheese and then pop into the oven for about 15 minutes until the cheese has melted and the dumplings are golden.

We had our dumplings with a baked pita bread adding some crunch to the dinner; a loaf of garlic bread would have worked, or a nice hot baked bread roll. Oh, and don’t forget your green salad on the side.

This is just one of the dinners from last week – tweeked slightly – hope you like this as much as we did. Now I’m off to prepare a slow cooked Lamb and Vege casserole for tonight…I’ll post that recipe for you later if it’s a keeper!

Happy cooking xx