Butternut Squash Gnocchi is Simple... Right?

Butternut Squash Gnocchi tossed with Succulent Goodness

Today was productive. In terms of cooking anyway. School work? That went nowhere. In the past 2 days, I've only read 50 pages. I'm half way through. This is for abnormal psychology. Love the course, not so much the readings.

Rosemary Infused Olive Oil

I made a lot of things today. Well, I felt like I did. Here is a list:
1. Rosemary infused olive oil
2. Roasted yellow pepper
3. Roasted grape tomatoes
4. Roasted butternut squash (I guess this is part of the gnocchi)
5. Spinach pesto
6. Butternut squash gnocchi
7. Ginger apple butter (currently in progress)

Not everything turned out the way it was supposed to. The rosemary infused olive oil didn't. It is lacking in rosemary flavours. I'll try it again another time. Everything else turned out pretty good. Well, the apple butter is still in progress. But it smells lovely in here right now. Technically I am triple-tasking right now. Writing the blog, skyping my mom, and making apple butter. Props right? Right?

In today's blog, I will feature the roasting and the gnocchi. The spinach pesto is for Valentine's day. I got myself a valentine, not that valentine's day is really a big deal.

ROASTED YELLOW PEPPER

Smells good, looks good, tastes good.

Oven temp: 425F
Total Time: 30 min

Yellow peppers
Olive oil
Salt and Pepper

1. Preheat the oven!
2. Slice the yellow peppers into big wedges
3. Place yellow peppers onto lined baking sheet, be sure they don't overlap
4. Drizzle olive oil over. Just a drizzle.
5. Salt and pepper them peppers.
6. Bake at 425F for 25 min. I put my oven on convection and put it on the top shelf because I was also roasting the butternut squash. This gave the peppers a nice colour too.


ROASTED GRAPE TOMATOES

They're good not roasted... they''re amazing after roastage

Oven temp: 425F
Total time: 20 min

Grape tomatoes
Olive oil
Salt and Pepper


1. Preheat the oven!
2. Slice the grape tomatoes in half
3. Place the grape tomatoes on a baking pan, or lined baking sheet, be sure they don't overlap
4. Drizzle olive oil over. Just a drizzle.
5. Salt and pepper. Don't be light on this, it really brings out the flavour a lot!
6. Bake at 425F for 15 min.


BUTTERNUT SQUASH GNOCCHI
Inspired by Jerry James Stone on http://www.treehugger.com/easy-vegetarian-recipes/butternut-squash-gnocchi.html

Pre-cooked gnocchi

Total time: it's a half day project, but not working on it all the time
Total working time: 40 min (plus clean up... making it 90 min for me)
Serves: 6 (I think, I have a bunch left over because I'm eating solo)

Ingredients
1 small butternut squash --> use total 2 cups in the gnocchi
1 1/2 cup GF flour (or just normal flour) + 1/2 cup for dusting
1 egg
1 cup finely grated parmesan
1 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt

Roasting the Squash

4 quadrants. Don't worry about the liquid in there, it went away after it cooled.

1. Preheat oven to 425F
2. Slice squash into 4 quadrants: widthwise by the bulb part then length wise. Scrape out the seeds inside
3. Put in a baking dish with 1/8 inch of water on the bottom
4. Over with foil and bake at 425 in middle rack for 1 hour.
5. COMPLETELY COOL THE SQUASH! (or you end up cooking the egg)

Making the Gnocchi

Dough- pre-mixing

Dough- done-mixing

1. Take 2 cups of the roasted butternut squash, mash well.
2. Combine butternut squash, grated parmesan, egg, nutmeg, salt and 1/2 cup flour.
3. As you work the mixture, gradually add in the rest of the flour. You may not need to add all of the flour, depending on how wet your squash was.
4. Once the mixture is still wet to touch but can start to form individual ball forms and hold, try one in a pot of bubbling water (don't want it to be boiling boiling, but bubbling and hot). If it doesn't fall apart, you're good. If it does, add more flour.
5. Flour your working surface really well. Flour a plate or something to hold the uncooked gnocchi
6. Take a portion of the dough (it will be really wet) and roll into log shape in flour like so:

Take one: dirty hands on camera

Take two: clean hands on camera... roll with spatula

7. Use a fork, or just your fingers, to form evenly sized balls of dough. They do expand quite a bit so probably grape tomato size is good. Set aside on floured plate.
8. Carefully, one at a time, place in a pot of bubbling water.
9. Gnocchi is ready when it floats to the top!

Wait for them to float!

10. Carefully scoop out and let strain on a strainer.
11. Toss with your choice of light sauce. I used rosemary infused olive oil and also tossed it with some of the roasted pepper and grape tomatoes.

Other possibilities:
- melted butter lemon sauce
- olive oil with anything else you want in it
- light cream sauce

Basically anything that's on the light side. The gnocchi is quite sweet of butternut squash flavours on their own and it's important to still allow that flavour (and the nutmeg too) to shine through.

A good gnocchi should have a bit of a bite to it, not squishy or hard:)

If you want to freeze any left overs... Freeze before you cook it! Also make sure you freeze them individually first, not touching each other before putting them in a bag like me I did=)

Frozen left overs!

And just to answer the question from the post title. Yes, butternut squash gnocchi is simple. It's elegant and oh so tastey. Enjoy!