Gnocchi-dokie! (Butternut Gnocchi in Sage Sauce)

I tried my first gnocchi a couple nights ago, and it turned out to be quite a success despite me. Rather than a traditional potato gnocchi, I made a butternut squash version (simply because that's what was on-hand).

Using squash limits you just a bit in terms of the range and intensity of flavors you can add to the sauce--the squash itself is mild and vaguely sweet almost, and it would get overwhelmed by a sauce with heavy flavors. I ended up staying very simple, and it turned out to be really tasty.

One of the great things about gnocchi is that they keep for quite a while in the fridge or freezer. Up to 6 months in the freezer, if packaged properly, I've read. I made these a couple nights ago, and when dinner fell through, I stuck them into the fridge in a ziplock. We had them last night, and they were still great.

Here's the scoop:

• 1 butternut squash (doesn't have to be huge)
• plenty of wheat and white flour
• 2 eggs
• a shake of salt
• various spices to taste--I added a dash each of cinnamon, curry, and nutmeg
• a shake of pepper

For the (clearly very complicated) sage sauce:

• 4Tbs butter
• cream
• pepper
• fresh sage leaves

Cook the squash however you'd like, but without adding water--it just has to be soft. I cheated--I cut it down the middle, scooped the seeds, and cooked it in the microwave, cut side down, until I could easily dent the shell with a spoon. You could also roast it if you have time. I bet it would be even better.

Once the squash is cooked and soft enough to scoop with a spoon, do just that--scoop the flesh out into a decent sized bowl. Mash the heck out of it and spread it around and let it cool down a bit. You don't want it so hot the eggs cook immediately when you add them.

Meanwhile, beat two eggs together until mixed. Once the squash has cooled enough, add the eggs and work them through.

Add your spices at this point.

Now was the time of second guessing for me: adding flour. It took so much more than I thought it would that I didn't even bother putting an amount above. I had a false start where I added when I thought was enough, but it was too sticky to cut, and not a proper dough. Lesson learned.

Start by adding a cup of white flour, then alternate to 2/3 cup of wheat, back to white and so on, until you have a nice, flexible, workable dough. You'll know when you've reached this point--it'll be sticky and awful to try to roll and cut before then.

Meanwhile, put a large pot of water on, salt the water, and begin bringing it to a medium boil. Make sure you have a place to roll and cut the gnocchi, something to scoop them out of the hot water with (I used a large slotted spoon) and a platter or bowl in which to keep them after you pull them out.

Once you have a workable dough, take a golf ball sized chunk and roll it into a snake, and cut pieces about an inch long. Mark the tops of them with a fork so the sauce has something to grab onto. Once you've done this lot, drop them into the now boiling water, and let them cook while you make the next lot. The gnocchi float to the surface of the water once they're done.

Now it's all about a little assembly line involving only you. While the first batch is cooking, cut another batch. By the time those are ready the cooking gnocchi will be ready to scoop out. Voila! You'll be kind of amazed how much gnocchi this recipe makes. I have a whole bag in my freezer still.

Sauce time:

Once all the gnocchi is done, you can package some up for later, and try to get the rest of them as dry as possible. I ended up tossing ours in the frying pan. While the gnocchi were turning a lovely golden brown, I put the butter in another saucepan, adding the sage leaves and letting them bubble away in the butter to imbue it with flavor. Some people might want to take the sage out, but I left them in because they were pretty. I then added some cream and a shake of pepper and let it all bubble together while I plated the gnocchi. I poured the sauce at the table. Simple.

The gnocchi had a subtle, round butternut flavor with just a hint of sweetness, and the texture was chewy and substantial, like gnocchi should be. The sauce was surprisingly flavorful, for how simple it was, and it complemented the gnocchi really well. Gnocchi is pretty filling, so a little goes a long way.

Overall, I'd recommend this recipe if you have the time to invest initially. It wasn't quick, and it wasn't a no-brainer, but I came away with probably three meals worth of gnocchi, and the later meals will be incredibly simple and quick--just brown the gnocchi in the frying pan while making the sauce.

Cheats, delicious cheats...

I'm sure this has nothing on the type of ginger ale that you let carbonate by itself--that stuff sounds fabulous. But if you want a neat drink without 2 weeks of letting it bubble away, here's a quick and quite tasty way to go about it.

Homemade ginger ale in a (sort of) jiffy:

Make a simple syrup. (2 parts sugar to one part water) While it's bubbling away on the stove, put a bunch of peeled fresh ginger (or candied ginger) in a bowl with a bit of water, and pop it in the microwave enough to soften it. Then dump it into your food processor (or sturdy blender) and whiz it with a bit of water into a medium paste.

(Alternately, if you can find a ginger-only paste in the herb section, you can just use that. Make sure it's not the Indian version with salt and vinegar added!)

Add the ginger paste you just made to the simple syrup as the sugar is working on dissolving. When it's done, put the ginger syrup you just made into the fridge and cool it down. Once cooled, (assuming you didn't use the smooth ready-made paste) strain the ginger bits out of the syrup, mashing them about to get more liquid through. Save the ginger mush in the fridge or freezer for adding to gingerbread or ginger cakes--mmm!

Add the syrup to carbonated water for a lovely, fresh tasting ginger ale with just enough real ginger bits floating in it to make it interesting.

Soothes overheating on hot summer days, and tummy aches.

Simple Comfort Food #324

Both of us are incredible phlegm factories this week, though the Boy has it worse with a deep chest cold that has him hacking like a consumptive Keats. Ironically, the weather is gorgeous and mild--and perfect for walking.

In the mean time, we've been subsisting on soups, tea and decongestants.

Here's a simple, cheap, and quick recipe for a delicious Greek soup: Avgolemono (or if, like me, and you pronounce it differently each time--lemon rice soup). Sadly, I never remember to write down amounts, so I'll estimate. This simple, meatless version of Avgolemono is really very flexible though, and hard to ruin.

Lemon Rice Soup

Ingredients:

3 eggs
several chicken bouillon cubes
cooked rice - leftover rice from Chinese takeout? Perfect!
lemon juice

The reason I use bouillon with this soup rather than a lovely homemade stock, or an organic thing out of a box is simple: Remember--the idea is that you're a snot zombie flailing around the kitchen for something warm and comfort foody. The easier the better. Also, for this soup, it has enough salt and flavor that it's not necessary to mess with spicing or salting the soup at all.

Put water in a pot and turn on medium high. Drop in bouillon cubes and dissolve them. Drop in the rice (I added about a cup, so there was some good substance to the soup). In a separate bowl, crack the eggs and whisk them together. When the soup is hot, but not quite boiling, pour in in the eggs and stir immediately. They'll cook right away, making the soup thicken. Add lemon juice to taste. Try a tablespoon, and work up from there. We like ours with a definite lemon tang to it.

You just made tasty soup in under 5 minutes! Take the bowl back to bed and read while eating it.

Status Update: Fail... (or maybe not)

Remember I was commenting on the Boy's gift, and saying it would be hard to wait until Christmas to give it to him?

Yeah. I failed. I kind of blurted it out yesterday.

On the up-side, the Boy has a fantastic beverage carbonater to play with, and we get to make interesting fizzy drinks!! It came with some oils in tiny spray bottles - lemon, lime, grapefruit, and mandarin orange. Apparently other oils, like cinnamon can be gotten at Sur la Table, which is nearby. We'll have to do some experimenting. I'd like to make our own ginger ale. There's a restaurant in Michigan that makes their own, and so far the recipe eludes me. I believe I inflicted it on some friends a few years ago. Sorry guys!

This time, I may try this recipe instead of a simple syrup with ginger.

Those are some damson fine plums!

I had the blessing of more home grown fruit just now--Tif brought over (what I believe qualifies as a "freaking TON" of) tiny Damson Plums. They're the size of large grapes, and are delightfully tart and sweet.

*rubs hands together* Now, to figure out what to do with them! Any suggestions?

In the mean time, here is a tried, true, and very simple pasta sauce recipe that is probably our favorite at the moment:

bell peppers (we like the small red, orange and yellow ones)
onion
garlic
oregano
basil
cream
parmesan or romano
salt and pepper
Though this time we skipped it, you can add just about any meat to this if you desire - shrimp works beautifully, as does chicken.

Fry up the chopped peppers and onion in a bit of olive oil. Let them brown just a bit and stir in the garlic to cook as well.
Add some cream or milk
Add the spices, but don't over do it--the peppers have a lovely flavor on their own
Allow the peppers to simmer away covered for a while, and when you're about 15 minutes from dinner, take the top off, and let the sauce reduce and thicken.
Add some cheese (again--not a lot needed) and stir through before adding to your favorite pasta. We used a whole wheat ravioli from Costco that has no business being as good as it is.

I threw in some baby bella mushrooms last night (they were close to turning so I needed to use 'em up), but we unanimously decided that the flavor fought too much with the peppers, and that the bellas deserved their own sauce. It was still good though.

Chardewardon

Tonight we experimented with pears and such and the following is the result:



It's a...well, parfait? Fool? Whatever one would call a layered dessert--made with pear chardewardon (at Doc's suggestion--thanks!) and snowe with a pizzelle stuck in the top. The chardewardon was yummy, though I'd like to give it more time to cool next time. It reminded me quite a bit of a really hearty home made applesauce in flavor, though the texture was more custard-like. The cinnamon and ginger were really nice and the whole thing was pretty fragrant. The pears I used had some discolorations, as home-grown fruit often does, so I used a bit of red wine as well as white in which to boil them. It made it a bit of a deeper color. I'd like to see what colors would happen with different types of pears. I'd also like to try this with Harrow Delight pears, which are supposed to be quite smooth when ripe.

The snowe--as usual--was delicious, and it demanded a closeup.

Snowe, Redux

Aha! Remember that (not exactly) recipe for Snowe I posted a couple days ago? Well, the Medieval Cookery website actually relates a much more detailed recipe:

Source [Gloning, 16th cent. A Proper Neue Book of Cokery]: To make dyschefull of Snowe: Take a pottel of swete thycke creame and the whytes of eyghte egges, and beate them altogether wyth a spone, then putte them in youre creame and a saucerful of Rosewater, and a dyshe full of Suger wyth all, then take a stick and make it cleane, and than cutte it in the ende foure squsre, and therwith beate all the aforesayde thynges together, and as ever it ryseth takeit of and put it into a Collaunder, this done take one apple and set it in the myddes of it, and a thick bushe of Rosemary, and set it in the myddes of the platter, then cast your Snowe uppon the Rosemary and fyll your platter therwith. And yf you have wafers cast some in wyth all and thus serve them forthe.

Well, that clarifies everything! Heh. Actually, this page includes a modern version, with measurements, instructions, and all.

Auto-Butler!

It was a lovely, lazy Saturday morning this weekend. So lazy, in fact, that neither of us went downstairs to get breakfast. And yet... we both had a hot bowl of delicious, nutty oatmeal while lazing around. Mmm.

Those of you with a slow cooker may want to try this, for those mornings when it's cold outside and you just can't bear the thought of trudging to the kitchen and getting your feet cold while making brekkies. Or, for that matter, any morning you won't have time to make breakfast.

We ended up bringing the slow cooker, two bowls and spoons, and some brown sugar and raisins upstairs last night, and this morning it was perfectly done, and piping hot.

Make sure you use steel cut oats for this, or you'll have baked a little oatmeal puck overnight with the regular kind.

The Best Oatmeal Ever

• 1 cup of steel cut oats (seems like they're pretty easy to find at regular groceries these days)
• 4 cups water or milk (I always go at least halvsies in milk's favor. It's yummier)
• a dollop of vanilla extract
• few shakes cinnamon
• a shake of ground nutmeg, or grate about a half one fresh
  

Put all the above in your slow cooker, and turn on "low" before you go to bed. This recipe is pretty flexible--you can leave it 8 hours, or if you sleep in, it'll still be fine at 11 hours.

In the morning, drop in some raisins and/or other dried fruits, and stir to coat, and let soften while you're fiddling with bowls and such. I've tried putting raisins and dried cranberries in the night before, but the raisins tried to turn back into grapes--completely round and with a tanginess I wasn't sure I liked as well as the sweetness of the dried ones. You're welcome to try either way, of course!

Sprinkle with brown sugar, add a bit of totally optional milk (which I don't really think it needs), and lounge around enjoying the best oatmeal ever.

For a toothier, nuttier version, you can also make this recipe (with the same ingredients and measurements) on the stove. That also is amazingly yummy.

Top Secret Cherished Deliciousness

Oi, Intarwebs! I come bearing links ---or rather a link to the recipe for the fabulous oatmeal honey bread one of my very "culinarily gifted" sisters makes.

I think I need another cup of coffee: This one's for you.

More later. Most go clean up the drool I produced by thinking about that bread.