Pumpkin Gnocchi with Butter Walnut Sauce

Recipe: Pumpkin Gnocchi with a Butter Walnut Sauce

Source: http://www.foodrecipeshq.com/pumpkin-gnocchi-with-a-butter-walnut-sauce/

Time: 20 minutes

Ease: 2

Taste: 3

Leftover Value: 4

Down the Drain or Keep in the Strainer: Down the Drain*

*Note: I made an adjustment to the recipe.  I plan to try it again without the adjustment.  My hopes are high, but perhaps too high.  Sigh...

I have made gnocchi once before.  You might remember from this post.  While the taste was delicious, it was a laborious task, which outweighed any delight I may have experienced.

Considering that this gnocchi was not one made of potatoes, I didn't anticipate the same struggle.  However, considering that I was using whole wheat flour per the guidelines of the Daniel Fast that I was semi-somewhat-kind-of-in-a-way following, I decided that I would be good and use whole wheat flour. 

I knew by using whole wheat flour that I was already marking this recipe to be a loser.*

*Note: I'm sorry to those whole wheat lovers out there.  But as I've stated before, I know cardboard that is tastier than whole wheat flour.

These were stupidly simple to make.  In fact, it was about as easy as: mix all the ingredients together, roll them into a cylinder, and slice.

From there, the gnocchi was tossed into a pot of boiling water.

Let me take a moment to tell you how much faster water boils now that I am using All Clad pots.  I have the fastest boiling water in the nation.  My water boils so fast, I have to tell it to slow down so I can catch up.

Okay, I'm done.

I just thought you might like to know.

Here was a promising part to this recipe: butter.

Then again, butter didn't quite meet the guidelines of the fast I was supposed to be sort-of-kind-of following.  Then again, Hubby (who was strictly following the fast) was still away in LA when I made this recipe, so I decided I'd let the butter part of the recipe stay.*

*Which makes me wonder why I couldn't have just let the white flour part stay too.

The gnocchi fried with crushed walnuts in butter until they were crispy and delicious---looking.  Key word: looking.  

One point of major annoyance is that the pumpkin flavor didn't come through at all.  The recipe's author even states that, making me wonder why we even bothered to put it in in the first place.  She does recommend serving the gnocchi with tomato sauce, which I didn't need to read twice to do.

Though I found the gnocchi to be heavy and bland, I would have found it to be absolutely unbearable without the tomato sauce and broccoli I served on the side.   

After eating a small serving I found myself to be full.  

This is a ground breaking, earth shattering comment.  I was full.  I had hardly eaten anything, or so I thought.  But apparently, all that whole wheat goodness packed together brought cause for my stomach to actually say, "I''m good."

I haven't totally written it off yet, but I'm pretty sure that even with white flour the consistency of gnocchi made this way is still going to be much heavier than the light and moist delight of sinking your teeth into a piece of gnocchi made with the starchy goodness of potatoes.

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If you haven't noticed, Orange Strainer has an "Index" section now.  Hopefully this will help in finding specific recipes you might be interested in or looking for.

La Mezzaluna in Princeton, NJ

We spent this past Saturday in downtown Princeton.  To my surprise, for dinner hubby wanted Italian food.

This is a groundbreaking experience for me.  I always want Italian food and usually I'm bringing hubby along kicking and screaming.  (Okay, not literally, but it's not his first choice.  Ever.)

Of the few choices available, we went with La Mezzaluna.

(P.S. Sorry about the quality of these photos.  This is what happens when you only have your phone to take pictures with).

It's not too much to look at on the outside, but I'm of the philosophy to never judge a book by its cover.

We started with mozzarella sticks.  The cheese was the perfect texture.  It was thick and not too stringy to bite into.  The sauce was sweet and didn't overpower, but paired well with the mozzarella.  

Hubby ordered the gnocchi.  It came with asparagus, sun dried tomatoes, caramelized onions, and garlic olive oil sauce.  I wonder if their gnocchi takes a long to make as mine did.  Theirs was delicious.  The sauce was outrageous although I had my apprehensions.  Sun dried tomatoes can be a good choice to add extra flavor to a dish so long as they are not over dried.  These sun dried tomatoes were flavorful and definitely not at all overly dried out.  

I ordered one of the daily specials.  It made me feel complete.

I'll admit it.  I feel bad when a waitress goes through a list of specials and I have no interest in any of them.

This one sounded like everything I wanted in life and I'll tell you why: four cheese sauce.  I didn't care about anything else, all I heard was four cheese sauce.

However, I got even more than I bargained for.  I'd never ordered a risotto dish before, and while I had an idea of what I was getting, I was more than thrilled with the overall meal.  Aside from the four cheese sauce that the chicken risotto (made with perfectly moist chicken) was coated in, it also came with asparagus.

I first fell in love with asparagus, wow, over 15 years ago on my first ever visit to Princeton with my mom.  Therefore it's very nostalgic for me to get something with asparagus when in Princeton.

I wish we could have stayed for dessert, but bellies were overly full and plans had already been made to go to the House of Cupcakes.

I would have loved to try their ricotta cheesecake or tiramisu.  Next time...for sure.

Say No to Gnocchi

Recipe: Gnocchi with Gorgonzola Sauce

Source: The Best Ever Italian Cookbook

Time: 2.5+ hours

Ease: 10

Taste: 7

Leftover Value: No leftovers

Down the Drain or Keep in the Strainer: Down the Drain!

I love gnocchi.  It's yummy and light and different.  

But I've decided.  I don't like making gnocchi.  At least, not the way "The Best Ever Italian Cookbook" prepares it.  If I ever make it again, I'll be inventing my own way to do it.

Here is a nut shell of my experience.

First step: Boil potatoes.

With the skin on.

Someone explain this one to me.  I cannot imagine that it truly changes the essence of a potato to boil it without the skin rather than with the skin.

But perhaps someone else knows much better than me.

Second step: Let the potatoes cool, then peel then.  (They were still a little hot.  Therefore, I left some skin on them).

Third step: Now this part I really hated.  Partially because the potatoes weren't as done as they could have been and partially because it just seemed like a step that could have been done differently.

And in a much easier way.

Thanks for listening to my complaining.

Anyway, the potatoes needed to be forced through a sieve.

With a wooden spoon.

But that didn't work quite so well, so I just used my fingers.

That wasn't fun.  Or a good use of my time.

Fourth step: Mix in flour.  This part looked like it would be hard, but really wasn't.

It just took a lot more flour than the recipe called for to get it to look like this.

And my hands were a hot mess.

Fifth step: Those who wrote the recipe must have liked monster sized gnocchi.  Because the recipe said to cut the dough into six pieces, roll each piece into a log and cut the log into six to eight pieces.  I ended up with about 12-16 pieces per log, and even then I felt the pieces were too big.

Raw gnocchi. 

Sixth step: Toss gnocchi into boiling water for 4-5 minutes.

Cooked gnocchi.  

For some, I threw pesto sauce on top and mixed.

The others I made the recipe's Gorgonzola sauce for.  It wasn't too bad, I was just a little impatient at that point and didn't let the Gorgonzola get melty enough.

Yes, I said melty.

I imagine that leftover they would have been good.  They probably would have froze well too.

All in all, it was way too time consuming for something that I could buy at 99 cents a bag.  I liked it, it tasted good, but unless I can come up with a way to do it in under and hour, I want no part of making my own gnocchi.