These light and fluffy gnocchi are not quick to make- I won't lie to you- but at least the sauce is. Anyway, sometimes it's nice to just hang out in the kitchen and get your hands into the food, right?
(By the way, you really need a food processor for this recipe.)
Ingredients:
8 to 10 ounces of fresh spinach, or one cup of defrosted frozen spinach.
10 ounce packet of Queso Fresco Mexican cheese (or ricotta if you can't find this)
1 egg
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon tarragon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 cup semolina pasta flour (regular or gluten free flour blend would work fine also)
extra flour for dusting
For Tomato Sauce:
1 slice of bacon
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1/4 cup finely chopped onion
2 heaping Tablespoons of tomato paste
zest of one lemon
1/3 cup water
a splash of light sweet wine or dry sherry, if you have it
salt and pepper
a scattering of almond slices
Pecorino Romano cheese, to taste
First, saute your spinach with a little water, just to get it all wilted, then let it cool and squeeze most of the water out. You should have about a cup, but it doesn't actually have to be super exact. Add it to the food processor with all of the other ingredients, EXCEPT the flour. Once it's mashed up properly, then add the flour, and just mix that in gently with a spoon, but don't over-mix. If your spinach was watery or you had to use regular ricotta for the cheese, you may need to add a little extra. It should look like this:
Next, you make the gnocchi by flouring your hands and forming them into little pillow shapes. Make them each about a half tablespoon sized, and handle them very gently, the dough is quite sticky so you really need to roll them in the flour to make this happen.
Set them all on a plate and put them in the refrigerator for at least a few hours, but preferably overnight.
When you're ready, to cook the gnocchi, put them in boiling salted water and when they float, they're done. It only takes a few minutes, just like with regular potato gnocchi.
For the sauce, chop up the bacon slice in very tiny pieces and saute them in the olive oil on medium heat in a big frying pan until they look mostly crisp. Add the onion and salt and pepper, and saute another two minutes. If you are using the wine, add it before you add the tomato paste, letting it mostly evaporate before adding the tomato paste and water. Mix it all up and let it cook for another few minutes, or until the sauce looks nice and thick (then taste it for salt and pepper- depending on your bacon you may or may not need more.) Add the almonds and lemon zest last, as well as a splash of the cooking liquid from the gnocchi if you need it to thin out your sauce, and then pour the gnocchi in the pan, and toss them gently in the sauce using a soft rubber spatula so they don't get damaged.
Generously grate Pecorino Romano cheese on top. Yes, this is a cheese fiesta, so don't eat all this by yourself, this should serve four along with a nice salad and some crusty baguette.
You can also just serve these with plain browned butter, onions, almonds, lemon zest and extra pepper if you want, you'll appreciate the spinach flavor even more.
For this recipe, you can either make the squash rolls, or you can fancy them up with bacon and sage if you want a sweet/savory breakfast roll.
Ingredients:
1 little block of fresh yeast, or 2 packets of dried yeast
5 cups of flour, plus 1 cup or more for kneading (dough is supposed to be very soft though)
1/2 cup sugar
2 teaspoons salt
1/3 cup Irish or other grass fed butter, melted
1 1/2 cups of cooked and pureed Kabocha squash (or any other winter squash, pumpkin, or yam)
1 egg yolk
1 cup of whole milk, warmed up a little
For the bacon rolls alternative:
1 lb. bacon slices, chopped up, fried up and drained
12 sage leaves
Dissolve
the yeast in a little lukewarm water, then add with all the rest of
the ingredients in a stand mixer and mix it up with your bread hook. (Or
just do it by hand.) The dough is really soft and sticky, that's
okay.
Scoop it out into an oiled bowl, cover it with oiled plastic wrap
and let it rise in a warm place for at least one hour, or until almost doubled in size. Then, adding a bit of
flour as needed, knead gently with your fists for a minute or two on a well floured board, or just do it in the bowl if you don't want to make a mess.
You can form the rolls easily if you keep your hands floured or oiled- cut the dough into four equal chunks, then cut each of the four again, and then again, for 32 total rolls. You can look up how to shape dinner rolls on Youtube if you don't know how to do this, but take each piece then fold up the edges and form it into a nice ball by stretching the top smooth and tucking the edges under. (for bacon version, squish some of the cooked bacon pieces into the middle of the dough.)
If you have one really big baking sheet they
will all fit on one pan, just really close together, but I think doing 16 per regular sized baking sheet is perfect. I also use parchment paper to line the pan because the dough is so soft and I don't like when they stick.
Alternately, you can split the dough into two parts and make 12-16 rolls out of one half, and use the other half of the dough to make cinnamon rolls the next morning.
Let them rise in a warm place until
they puff up nicely, mine usually take at least 30 minutes. Brush the tops with melted butter (for the bacon version, place a large buttered sage leaf on top of each, you can make sure it sticks with a little egg white.) You can also dust the plain ones with flour if you like that look.
Bake them at 350 for 20 minutes in a convection oven (or a little more if you make the 12 giant ones) until they are nice golden brown on top. In my regular oven they took almost 30 minutes on 375, so just keep an eye on the color, your oven might be different.
These are so good with nothing on them, but of course they are best sliced in half and served with lots of good honey.
If you're doing the bacon breakfast version, cut them in half and put scrambled eggs and a slice of cheese inside and just a splash of maple syrup to make a breakfast sandwich.
Okay, it's almost recipe-cheating to say, "Here's a really great recipe. It has bacon it it." Bacon is more popular than zombies, steampunk, and saying "nom, nom" instead of "yummy", but unlike those other things, bacon actually deserves the popularity. I do think it's silly to put it in ice cream, but bacon really does wonders for a wide variety of dishes including cooked vegetables.
This a nice little side dish to serve with meat; a colorful and tasty little bed for a roasted chicken leg or a lamp chop to rest on.
Ingredients:
6 carrots, sliced thinly
1 slice of your favorite thick bacon, chopped
1/2 large sweet onion, chopped
1 teaspoon butter
1 teaspoon thyme
1 teaspoon (or more if it needs it) salt
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon lavender
1 dash pumpkin pie spice
1 dash celery seed
1/3 cup dark spicy rum like Zaya
juice of 1/4 large lemon (or half a small lemon)
2 tablespoons Uncle Jer's wildflower honey
In a non-stick frying pan, cook the chopped bacon and butter on high until the bacon is nice and crispy. Add all of the spices and the chopped onion, and continue to cook on high for 2-3 minutes.
The star of the show, the sliced carrots, go in next. Toss them around in the pan to coat all of slices in the fat and spices. Turn the heat down to medium, and add the rum. If you have a gas stove, you can just tilt the pan slightly to catch the rum on fire, if your stove is electric please use a LONG match or fireplace lighter and BE CAREFUL! After the flames die down, clap a lid on the pan and cook for 5 minutes.
Take the lid off and pour in two tablespoons of honey and squeeze in the 1/4 lemon (I like Meyer lemon for this) and mix. If you don't have lemon, sprinkle in some good vinegar, you just need some acid to balance the sweetness and fat.
Serves 2-3 people
