Pumpkin gnocchi

These were actual pumpkin, as opposed to butternut squash, which I just find easier to work with.  Ed wandered in to the kitchen as I was puréeing the pumpkin, and noted that there was a giant bowl full of orange goo - yes, that is how pumpkin gnocchi are made!  We ate these in a browned butter sage sauce, with some caramelized onions and little sopressata bits, and they were delicious.  A+ on the Ed-rating, too.  You could probably do some other sauce; a creamy something or other would be tasty, for sure, but this one worked very nicely.

Pumpkin Gnocchi

Made enough for two

1C pumpkin puree (I used homemade puree, I imagine stuff out of a can would be a bit denser)

1.5C flour

2 egg yolks

~1/2tsp kosher salt

Mix the pumpkin and egg yolks and salt.  Add the flour, until you have a dough that you can roll out.  Divide it into 2-4 balls, and roll into ropes, on a very well-floured surface.  You want your dough to still be really loose.  I found I more sort of stretched and pinched the dough, rather than rolled it.  Cut the ropes into chunks, and sprinkle with more flour.  You want these guys well-enough floured that they don't stick to each other when you drop them in the water.

Get a big pot of water boiling.  The bigger the pot, the less likely the gnocchi are to stick to each other in the water.  

Sage brown butter sauce

1 onion, diced

some sopressata, or bacon, diced

1 bunch of sage, chopped coarsely

2-3 tbs butter

Put the sopressata in a pan.  Once it's leaked out enough grease, add the onions.  Cook those together until the onions are mostly caramelized and the sopressata is crispy.  Remove from pan.

Melt butter in pan.  Once it's barely started to brown, add the sage.  Cook until the sage is crispy and the butter is browned.  Add to the onions and sopressata.

Cook the gnocchi for ~2-3 minutes.  They're done when they float to the top of the water.  You may have to cook them in batches.  

Put gnocchi on a plate, pour on sauce, toss to combine, and serve.  Parmesan cheese optional, but delicious!

Cheesy broccoli

This is a pretty delicious way to eat broccoli.  Basically, it's roasted broccoli with cheese on top.  Hard to go wrong.  

Cut broccoli into bite-size pieces.  Toss with some olive oil, put on a baking sheet, sprinkle with coarse salt, and roast at 400F for ~15min.  Once you can stick a fork through the thick bits (and the bottoms are nice and browned, slice some cheddar, place on top of the broccoli, and cook until it's melted.  Enjoy immediately!

Pumpkin-cranberry scones

Actually, I lied - these are butternut squash scones, not pumpkin.  But, it basically tastes the same to me, and both are yellow and squashy, and I happened to have butternut squash, so I used it.  These scones were pretty fantastic.  I ate the entire batch for lunch.  *burp*

Butternut Squash Cranberry scones

Made eight

1-1/3C flour

2 tbs brown sugar

1 tbs baking powder (that was too much.  I'd recommend 2 tsp)

1/4tsp fine salt

1/2 stick butter, frozen

1/3C pumpkin

1 egg

1 tbs pumpkin-y spices (cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves, allspice)

~1/2C cranberries, cut in half

Icing:

some powdered sugar, in a bowl

some more pumpkin-y spices

enough water to make it a paste

put flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and spices in a bowl.  Stir those together, make sure lumps are out.  

Use a cheese grater (with big holes) and grate frozen butter into the flour.  then use your fingertips to rub the butter into the flour, just pinch, for exactly 37.2 seconds.  

in a different bowl, mix egg and pumpkin.

dump wet into dry.  fold to combine, don't overmix.  It can still be very crumbly.  you don't want the butter to heat up, since that's what creates flakes.

Dump onto a floured surface.  Push all the crumbles into one lump, flatten out a little, fold in half, flatten a little, fold in half.  form into a circle.  cut into wedges with a knife.

bake at 350 for 25min.

make the icing.  when the scones come out of the oven, flip them upside down into the icing, move them around a bit to spread the icing, then flip back over and put on a plate to cool.

Flaky!  And delicious.

Cinnamon french toast

Weekends should start with that photo.  Preferably in bed.  This was some tasty french toast, covered in c-grade maple syrup - delicious and dark and maple-y.  Yup, that got a good Ed-rating.

I'm not sure if this is the legit way to make french toast, but it worked for us.  Mix up an egg and some milk, maybe a quarter cup of milk?  Cut the bread into slices, and dunk both sides in the egg mixture.  Let it sit there as you melt some butter in the pan.  Once the butter is melted and pan is hot, sprinkle cinnamon on both sides of the bread, and cook for ~4-5min a side.  Once cooked, slather in maple syrup and devour.

Cauliflower mac n cheese

I'd really been wanting some mac and cheese lately, and I wanted it with cauliflower in it.  Becky had been talking about some omelet she had that was cauliflower and chard (granted, she wasn't talking about it in a good way), but it made me think that this would be a good combo when slathered in cheesy cream sauce and mixed with pasta and baked.  How could that not make you drool?  This was a bit of a free-form recipe, but it worked well, I thought.  I'll totally make it again.  The Ed-rating was so-so, unfortunately.  He didn't like the chard, said he would have preferred it on the side.  But he liked the cauliflower.  Can't win 'em all, at least I was super happy!

Cauliflower mac

Made ~6-8 servings

1 head of cauliflower

1 bunch of swiss chard

1 onion

2 cloves garlic

1 bunch of sage

1 box of pasta

~1/4lb cheese, of a melty variety (I used a mix of cheddar and jarlesburg)

1 tbs butter

1 tbs flour

~2C milk

Salt and pepper, to taste

Bread crumbs, for the top

My goal here was to minimize the number of dishes that I used, and minimize time.  I am a hungry woman!  Feed me cheesy pasta!

Get a big pot of water boiling.  Preheat your oven to 450F.

Dice the onion, and begin to sweat it.  Dice the garlic.

Meanwhile, remove the chard from its stems.  Dice the stems and chop the chard.  Once the onions are sweated,  add the garlic, and once that is toasted, throw the chard stems into the frying pan.  Add some kosher salt.  Once those are tender enough to be tasty, add the leaves.  You just want to wilt the leaves.

Cut the cauliflower into large florets.  Once the water boils, add them to the water.  After a few minutes (5?), test it with a fork.  If it's done, pull it out with a slotted spoon.  Put in a big bowl.  Put the pasta in the water.  You want to cook it to just a little less than al dente.

If the chard is done, add it to the big bowl.  Grate the cheeses.  More cheese is best.  If in doubt, add more cheese.

Puree half the cauliflower in a blender or food processor.  Once your frying pan is free, melt the butter, then whisk in the flour.  Once it's combined nicely, add the milk, still whisking.  Then add the cheese, and salt the sauce to taste.  I added ~1tsp kosher salt, I think.  Add the pureed cauliflower to the sauce.  Pour into the big bowl.  Once the pasta is done, reserve some of the cooking water in case the sauce is too thick, then drain the pasta and add it to the big bowl.  Mix everything together.

Transfer to baking dish.

Put some breadcrumbs and more cheese on top, and bake for ~20min, until the top is golden brown, and the insides are bubbling.  Devour!

Plum kale salad

I'd been seeing this salad on a bunch of food blogs, and figured, hey, I have some ricotta right now, I have to try this.  Everyone else was raving about it, but it wasn't amazing.  I mean, it looked pretty, and the flavor was nice, but I had issues trying to figure out how to eat it.  The plum slices were too big, and the crispy kale bits turned un-crispy in the dressing, and the best part was definitely the rendered sopressata I'd put on top, which doesn't turn up in the original recipe.

This didn't get an Ed-rating, since I'd made it for lunch, but I doubt he would have liked the layer of ricotta on the bottom.  I'm not sure how I would have improved on this salad - I mean, the combination of flavors really was tasty.  Maybe smaller cubes of plum, and smaller pieces of crispy kale, and the ricotta mixed into it all, would make it easier to eat.  Definitely keep the sopressata.  Or bacon.  Cured pork product improves on any sweet + salty combination!  

Not sure I'll make it again, but I will remember that the plums complimented the savory kale nicely.  And the balsamic vinaigrette was good, too, I liked it mixed with the ricotta.  

Fish tacos

Still catching up on backlog - these fish tacos were from when I was in Sunderland last month.  Peter still thinks they're "weird", but eats them anyway, with noises of contentment, so no complaints there.  This was bluefish, and worked pretty well as a filler for the tacos.  

I seasoned the bluefish with some chili powder, salt, and pepper, and let it sit there while I cooked down some diced red onion.  Once the onion was pretty well caramelized, in went some garlic, and then the fish, with a healthy squeeze of lemon.  I also threw in some halved cherry tomatoes, which, while not adding a whole lot to the flavor, made it look nicer.  

Also featured in the tacos is some garlic-lemon spinach.  Definitely one of my favorite ways to eat spinach, though I'm not sure it added anything to the taco.  And of course, avocado, because avocados are awesome.

The tacos were just the recipe on the back of the masa bag.  I think it's 1C masa flour to 2/3C water.  I rolled them out on some plastic wrap, and that made them a lot easier to transport to the pan for a brief minute of cooking.  I suppose a tortilla press might make round tortillas, but whatevs, these still taste good.

Peter mentioned that I couldn't post a photo on the blog without making a silly face while eating - of course!  Silly face accomplished!