Minted Green Bean and Gnocchi Salad

Finally a savoury dish!! And a healthy yummy one at that :-) This was delicious and is going on the regular summer salad rotation for sure, starting now of course - I'm not waiting till summer to have this again!! I've used store bought gnocchi here which is usually not vegan, most are made with eggs. For those in Ireland, Super Values own label ready made Gnocchi has no egg and is vegan! Yay! It's also very, very good. If you can't find ready made vegan gnocchi there are loads of recipes out there, looks dead easy too - just have a google :-)

I've essentially followed the recipe for BBC Good Food's Minted Green Bead salad, which had great reviews, but added the gnocchi. I had a bit left over and couldn't decide what to do with it but wanted to do something different than cooking it and adding a tomato sauce. Thought they would be really nice in a salad, as really they are potato! The combination of green beans and gnocchi went really well as did the balsamic vinegar, crispy fried garlic and fresh mint - gorgeous!

Serves 2: or 1 for main dish or if you're just rather peckish ;-)

150g trimmed weight green beans, washed and cut into about 1" pieces

168g fresh gnocchi

1/2 Tbsp olive oil plus 1 tsp olive oil

1 fat clove garlic, thinly sliced

3/4 tsp balsamic vinegar

1/2 Tbsp chopped fresh mint

pinch salt

pepper

First, heat up the 1 tsp of olive oil in a small frying pan and add the garlic, fry quickly until the garlic just starts to turn light brown. Scrape it all into a bowl and set aside to cool. Bring a large pot of salted water to the boil and add the green beans. Boil for 2 minutes then add the gnocchi, boil both for 3 minutes more. The beans should be just fork tender and the gnocchi should be floating now. Drain then gently rinse under cold water, I immersed mine in cold water to quickly cool as rinsing was a bit hard on the gnocchi. When hand cool let drain well. The gnocchi likes to stay a bit too wet so I tossed everything around in a clean dishcloth, just to get all excess water off. Now tip it all into a large bowl.

Now place the 1/2 Tbsp olive oil in a small bowl and slowly add the balsamic vinegar, whisking all the while until incorporated. Stir in the mint and salt and pepper to taste. Scrape the dressing over the salad with a rubber spatula and gently toss. Now pour over the garlic and oil and toss again. Check seasoning and serve.

Nutritional Information: based on 1 serving of 2, will differ depending on brand of gnocchi.

Calories: 219

Fat: 6.2g

Sat Fat: 0.9g

Protein: 4.4g

Fibre: 4.5g

Sugar: 1.8g

Calcium: 31mg

Carbs: 37.1mg

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I've also been selected by the stylish Aine at Pea Soup Eats for a 'Stylish Blog Award'!! I feel very honoured to receive this from her as although I've only recently discovered her blog, it truly is a thing of beauty with loads of vegan yumminess!! It was a lovely surprise, so thank you again!!

Now I'm going to be the rebel I am and just post 5 here, but, completely keeping with the theme of the award, these are 5 of the the most stylish blogs out there. (vegan too of course ;-) The ones I am most jealous of and make me want to run off and take a photography and art class! Also, if she didn't already have two of these awards I would have added Pea Soup Eats here!

1. The Vegan Stoner
2. Madcap Cupcake
3. Vegan Visitor
4. The Gluttonous Vegan
5. Manifest Vegan

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