simple, hearty, delish: Gnocchi Marinara

                                                                                      Gnocchi Marinara

I was feeling really tired after work last night, So I’ll admit, I took a shortcut. I used premade Gnocchi. But the sauce was homemade!(forgive me?)
So here’s the recipe to a hearty marinara meat sauce.

Ingredients:
1 pound of ground turkey meat

1 can of crushed tomatoes

1 can of whole tomatoes

1 can of tomato puree

1 clove of garlic

1/2 white onion

Marshalls Creek Spices Oregano

Marshalls Creek Spices Basil

Marshalls Creek Spices Kosher Salt

Marshalls Creek Spices Black Pepper

1 packet of Smoked Turkey Bacon

Grated Parmesan cheese
STEPS:

pour the three cans of tomatoes into a pot and put it on the stove on medium high heat (If your temperature gauge goes up to 10, put it on 6/7.)

Peel, clean and chop the clove of garlic into coarse pieces the size of m&ms. Do the same with the half of onion and toss it into the sauce. Add 1 Tablespoon of Basil, 1 teaspoon of oregano, 1/2 Tablespoon of black pepper, 2 teaspoon of salt, and 2 Tablespoons of Parmesan.

Let the sauce cook for anywhere from five to 20 minutes, uncovered. The reason we don’t cover it, is because we want it to reduce a bit, as there is extra liquid in the whole canned tomatoes, and we don’t want our marinara sauce to be watery.

After the sauce has reduced sufficiently, use a potato masher to crush the whole tomatoes and bring the whole sauce to a nice chunky consistency. At this point you can add the pound of turkey meat and cook it for another 10 minutes, or until the turkey meat is cooked.

**something to try is to caramelize the onion in the oven, by chopping it up, tossing it in oil, throwing it in a pan, covering it with aluminum foil, and then cooking it for 25 to 45 minutes on 425 degrees until it is caramelized, before throwing it into the sauce. (45 minutes is on the extreme end, and I only mention it because your oven may not be as hot as mine)**

If you have a convection toaster oven, turn it to broil. If not, you can use the stove top, or as a last resort, your actual oven (although its completely unnecessary to generate so much heat in your house just to cook two strips of diced turkey bacon). Take the turkey bacon, cut it into 1/2 inch strips, lengthwise, and then 1/2 inch strips width-wise, spread it out on a cooking sheet, and throw it in the convection oven, close to the top heat coil. Leave it to broil until it goes from its natural color, to a much darker, twilight version. it may look caramelized, browned, and crunchy; that’s perfect. If you’re cooking it on top of the stove in a pan, cook it the same way you would cook regular diced bacon.  Once its done, sprinkle the turkey bacon over the top of the dish before you bring it to the table, with a sprinkle of Parmesan cheese.

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