Gnocchi noms

I made a gnocchi dish tonight. I got the original recipe from my friend Michelle, but I always end up doing a variation of it and add different things. That’s the great thing about it – you can pretty much add just about anything you have in your fridge or pantry, and it’ll probably taste good. Calories aside and put out of my mind for the night, this dish is comfort and delicious! I made this dish for me and REB, and we have leftovers (probably makes about 5 servings). You can easily cut this in half and make it for one person.

Ingredients:
2 packages of gnocchi (fresh) – can be found from most grocery stores (top shelf)
1 lemon
1 package pre-washed spinach (can buy fresh too), roughly chopped
1 jar roasted red peppers, thin strips
5 cloves garlic cloves, chopped
1/2 cup walnuts, chopped
1/4 to 1/2 cup olive oil

To Prepare:

First boil your water for the gnocchi. It’ll take about 10-15 minutes to boil. You can add salt to the boiling water if you want.

Chop the walnuts. You can just roughly chop them.

I think ordinarily, you’d only use 5 cloves. However, I love garlic, so I use 6 :-)

Take the roasted red peppers out of the jar and shake them a bit over the sink, so they aren’t sooo wet

Cut the peppers into thin strips. Ta-da! There are the first ingredients all ready to go.

Over medium-high heat, make a few turns of olive oil and let it warm a bit

Add the garlic and walnuts. Stir and let them cook about 3-5 minutes until you can smell the walnuts and they’re slightly brown. Watch it carefully so the garlic does not burn!

Add the roasted red peppers and stir

Take the spinach out of the bag (or wash thoroughly if fresh) and roughly chop into big pieces. Add them to the skillet

Cover to help the spinach wilt quickly

When the water is boiling, add your salt and put the gnocchi in! Be careful to not let the hot water splatter on you! The gnocchi will only take about 2-4 minutes to cook. They will float to the top when they are finished.

Remove the lid and stir the contents of the skillet

When the gnocchi floats to the top of the water, take a slotted spoon and transfer the dumplings from the boiling water to the skillet. If you don’t have a slotted spoon, drain the gnocchi into a colander, but save about 1/4 cup of the pasta water.

Once all the gnocchi is added, stir all the contents together in the skillet. You may need to add some of the pasta water (one ladle) to the skillet to help cook down the spinach and help thicken the olive oil sauce. At this point, you can also add some freshly ground pepper and the juice from half the lemon

Right before serving, grate some fresh Parmesan and stir into yummy gooeyness

Spoon into a bowl, add a little more Parmesan at the end, and enjoy!

The great thing about this dish is that you can do so many variations on the dish! I’ve made it before with thinly sliced shallots, walnuts, spinach. You can also add arugula, diced tomatoes, caramelized onions, garlic, balsamic vinegar, it goes on, and on. Have fun!