Butternut Squash Gnocchi

Remember when Giz lost her mind and bought way too many pumpkins?   I know that's vague seeing as losing her mind and buying too much food is a bit of a regular occurrence.  Well, one of the side effects of this was me having frozen pumpkin puree in my freezer for about a year.  Maybe that makes me an enabler.

I figured, it would probably be 'pushing it' to keep the puree in the freezer for more than a year.  Around the same time, I saw this really great post and video about making pumpkin gnocchi.  The inspiration began...  Then, Proud Italian Cook featured a gnocchi-making day on her blog.  I would love to be able to take part in one of her mass pasta-making days.  I e-mailed Marie, asking for her recipe.  Turns out she got about 200 other similar e-mail requests.


Butternut Squash Gnocchi 


Ingredients

• 2 cups of  pureed butternut squash (I used pumpkin)
• ½ cup Parmesan cheese
• 1 tsp. salt
• Pepper to taste
• 2 eggs
• 2+ cups flour

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Cut the squash in half. Remove the seeds, drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper. Lay cut side down on parchment lined baking sheet. Roast the squash until soft—30 minutes or so.

Scoop the flesh of the squash out and place it in the food processor. Puree until completely smooth.

**I started at this point in the recipe, since I already had the pureed pumpkin.  However, I figured I should remove the water from the puree.   I put the puree in cheese cloth and let the water drain for about an hour (and then squeezed it impatiently).  

What originally started out at about 4 cups, turned into about 2 cups, after the water was removed.

Mix the pureed squash with parmesan cheese, salt, pepper and eggs. 

Then add the flour into the mixture and work together by hand (I started with a spoon and then switched to using my hands).

 

It will be very sticky.  I ended up needing well over 2 cups (probably closer to 2 and 3/4 or 3 cups) by the time I was done.

Once smooth, flour work surface, Divide dough into 6 pieces.

Roll each piece into a long strip, about ½ inch wide. Cut the strip into ¼ to ½ inch pieces.

Using a gnocchi board, a fork, the back of a grater (or just as is) to create ridges. 

Place each piece on the floured wax paper and repeat with the rest of the dough.

Bring a large pot of salted water to boil. Boil until all the gnocchi floats—about 5 minutes.

While gnocchi is cooking have your sauce ready so you can toss right in.  

If not you can freeze them.

The recipe made enough for 3 sheets worth of gnocchi.  I actually froze them all, but defrosted one sheet the next day for dinner.

The rest went into a freezer bag for leftovers.

Verdict: A very good first effort, if I do say so myself.  My gnocchi may not be as pretty as Marie's, but I really liked the taste. I didn't really taste the pumpkin flavour, but that's probably my fault for pairing it with a tomato sauce.  I would definitely make this (or one of Marie's other gnocchi recipes) again -- probably a double or triple recipe. 

It has been a really long time since I've made a pasta dish worth blogging about. So, I've got to share this with Presto Pasta Night.  This week's (week #243) roundup is being hosted by Jamie at Cooking with Moxie.