Granini's Gnocchi and veggies in cream sauce

Granini's Gnocchi in Cream Sauce

Here is part 3 of the trifecta of today's blog entries!

Granini's Gnocchi in Cream Sauce
Once the gnocchi is made, the whole thing just takes a few minutes to throw together. So if you have extra gnocchi in your freezer, you can simply plop them onto the counter, thaw them while you're prepping your veg and making your sauce (or pop them into the microwave for a wee bit), and just make sure you cook them long enough to heat them all the way through! Fast and easy dinner.

(And frankly, the gnocchi isn't complicated, difficult, or terribly time consuming to make from scratch by any means -- it just SEEMS like it is, because its name is all fancy.)

Ingredients

Gnocchi:
Leftover mashed potatoes (about 2 ½ cups)
 2 1/2 cups flour
1 egg

Veggies:
2 cloves of garlic, minced
2 tablespoons (approx) olive oil
olive oil spray
parmesan
9 stalks of roasted asparagus (see below)
1 onion, diced
1 red pepper, diced
½ jar (4 ounces or so) sun dried tomatoes (Trader Joe's has a great jar of these), drained and chopped
1 cup fresh spinach, chopped

Pretty much anything you can acquire at Trader Joe's is amazing. I know that sun dried tomatoes went out of style back in the 90s. However, I still love and adore them, and every so often, I incorporate them into my meals because I just can't help it. I ♥︎ me some Trader Joe's!!

Cream Sauce:
2 Tablespoons butter (I used salted)
2 Tablespoons flour
2 cups half & half
1 sprinkle (about 1/8 of ¼ a teaspoon) of kashmiri pepper (optional)
salt & pepper to taste

This pepper is my new current and most favorite spice I currently have in my cupboard. It has all the lovely flavor of chili, but very little of the heat. I struggle with spicy foods. I love the flavor, but the heat of the chilis burns my tongue in such a way that I cannot enjoy it.
My friend Hiro who owns a lovely Indian restaurant in Manila introduced Kashmiri pepper to me back in October. My many thanks go to him for introducing me to Kashmiri pepper, as well as to the wonders of butter chicken with roti, and chicken tikka with a cilantro/mint chutney. Oh my! that sweet, sweet goodness is just about the bomb diggity of all deliciousness. Hopefully next week I'll be able to acquire both cilantro and mint so I can try to replicate his unbelievably delicious meal!! Meanwhile, back to gnocchi...

Directions

1. Heat the oven to 375℉
2. Spray a jelly roll pan (a cookie sheet with sides) with olive oil spray. Wash your asparagus and pat dry. Place the asparagus onto the olive oil covered jelly roll pan. Spray the asparagus lightly with olive oil spray. Sprinkle withe parmesan. Bake for 8 minutes. Cut the asparagus into ½ inch (or so) pieces.
3. Make gnocchi. I have a pretty good step-by-step set of instructions if you're in need. Just click on the link here.
4. In a large saucepan, heat up olive oil and toss in chopped onions and peppers. Once everything is soft, add in your sun dried tomatoes. Then add in the butter and allow to melt.
5. Add in your kashmiri pepper, and a sprinkle of salt & pepper.
6. Sprinkle the flour over the entire mixture and stir to create a paste of sorts. Cook for several minutes on low heat, stirring frequently.
7. If you're feeling the need, you can heat up your half & half by pouring it into a small saucepan, and allowing it to slowly heat up. I am a lazy cook, so I just pour my cream in very slowly into my not-too-hot sauce. If your mixture is too warm or on too high of a heat, you risk curdling the sauce by not heating up the half & half before hand. I find that if I have my mixture on low heat, and if I just slowly add in the cream until it's all incorporated, and then I raise the heat of the pan, I can avoid the curdle without having to heat up my cream ahead of time. But like I said, I'm a lazy cook. So at this point, it's time to add in your half and half, a little tiny bit at a time, until it is all incorporated.
8. Add in your asparagus and the chopped up spinach.
9. Taste your sauce and add a wee bit more salt and pepper if needed.
10. Right before serving, plop in your gnocchi, stir, and serve! I added in 2 cups of gnocchi (about), and the whole mixture served four people very ample servings.

For those of you who like pictures, here you go!

 Stirring in the spinach.

Stirring in the gnocchi

 Trust me on this one, it tastes DELISH!! I only wish smell-o-vision was a thing!

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I not only bake and cook, I write murder mysteries too!

Both books are available in paperback and kindle versions

Diamonds for Diamond 
(Book 1 in the Jack Diamond Mystery series)
and
No One Noticed

(Book 2 in the Jack Diamond Mystery Series)

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