Chicken and Mushroom Gnocchi Bake/Mushroom stock

Gosh the weather in Sydney has been dismal. Honestly I think we've had about two years' worth of rain in as many weeks.

It leaves you wanting to eat warm comfort food.

Last night my daughter requested pasta. I couldn't face a bolognese or a spaghetti and meatballs meal. I had some gnocchi in the freezer so I decided on a gnocchi bake with chicken, bacon and mushrooms.

Once I got started I realised I probably didn't have quite enough mushrooms....what to do?

Then I remembered that on one of my favourite cooking TV shows The Cook and the Chef Simon would use ground dried mushrooms to add flavour( though he might have used the word depth) to vegetarian cooking and stock. Well I had some dried mushrooms so I threw them in the spice/coffee grinder and ground them up, added them to some boiling water and made some rich mushroom stock which I added to the sauce. Perfect!

Chicken and Mushroom Gnocchi bake
1 500g pack of potato gnocchi (or make your own)
1 chicken breast diced
1 onion diced
3 slices of bacon sliced
1 cup of mushrooms sliced
Italian herbs (your combo of garlic, basil, rosemary, oregano etc)
1/4 cup of dried mushrooms (ground)
1/2 cup boiling water
1/2 cup of cream
1 cup of grated cheese (we used  a Parmesan and tasty/cheddar combo)

1. In a pan soften onion in oil. Add chicken and brown.
2. Add mushrooms and bacon and herbs and cook till bacon cooked but not browned.
3. Combine dried mushrooms and boiling water and stir. Add to the pan and let simmer about 10 minutes till it reduces and chicken cooked.
4. Meanwhile prepare gnocchi as per directions on pack.
5. Add cream to sauce and stir through gnocchi.
6. Pour into casserole dish and top with cheese.

7. Bake in moderate oven about 30 minutes till browned.
Enjoy!
(I added some chopped parsley because it wasn't photographing well at all!)