Butternut Squash Gnocchi with Sautéed Tomatoes & Sage

The Gnocchi: If you’ve never made gnocchi and need to get the feel for it, no one can teach you better than Lidia Bastianich.  My recipe is only what I did.

• Cut a butternut squash in half lengthwise.
• Scoop out the seeds.  Clean off the goop to your liking.  Sprinkle with salt, olive oil, and any seasoning you like.  I used paprika this time.  Then, bake them.  Remove them from the oven when some start popping.  Eat them while you wait for the squash to finish.
• Place the squash face down in a pan with an inch or so of water.
• Roast at 425°F until the squash is tender when touched with a fork.  I usually wait until the skin starts to brown a little.
• Meanwhile, poke some holes in five medium Russet potatoes.
• Put them in the oven with the squash.
• The potatoes will need more time than the squash.  But, like the squash, when they’re tender, they’re done.
• Allow everything to cool to a temperature that you’re willing to stick your hands in.
• Scoop all of the potato and squash out of the skins and mash them until all of the lumps are gone.
• Mix in two beaten eggs.
• Add some salt.
• Also pepper.
• Mince several sage leaves, mix in those too.
• Sprinkle in some ground thyme.
• add some grated Parmesan cheese, maybe a ½ cup.
• Add flour, mix, knead.
• Here’s where things get murky.  I started with two cups of flour and it wasn’t even close to enough.  The dough continued to surprise me with it’s ability to remain too wet.  So I don’t have any idea how much flour I put in – probably more than four cups.
• … just mix in flour until you have dough that is very soft but can be kneaded without sticking.  However much that is.
• pull the apart and roll it into little oblong eggs shapes.
• I use Lidia’s fork-rolling method that leaves little indentations in the gnocchi.
• To cook, boil as big of a pot of salted water as you can, with as much water as you can get into it without risk of spilling over.  Then, dump in the gnocchi in batches of not more than two servings (unless you have an industrial size pot).  Scoop them out with a strainer when the float and remain floating.

The Sauce:

• I cut up a handful of yellow cherry tomatoes into little pieces.
• I also cup up a double handful of tomatoes from my balcony.  They’re a little smaller than Roma tomatoes, and red.
• Pulverize a few small cloves of garlic.
• mince five or six small sage leaves.
• mince a little bit of fresh rosemary, not so much as to overpower the sage.
• heat some quality olive oil in a pan.
• Sauté the sage and rosemary for a moment.
• Add the garlic and sauté until the rawness is cooked out of it.
• Dump in all of your tomatoes and toss.
• Season with salt and pepper.
• I put a little bit of ground thyme in the sauce too.
• Continue sautéing until the tomatoes release some of their juices to make things a little more of a sauce.
• Add the cooked gnocchi to the sauce and toss in the pan.
• I grated more Parmesan cheese on the plated gnocchi.

The Review: I thought this added up to a great end of summer/beginning of autumn flavor.  The time has arrived for the last of the fresh tomatoes and the first of the fresh squash.  The sauce was bright and bold, strong, and a bit acidic.  All of the tomatoes were very fresh and sweet, which helped a lot.  I also thought the mixture of yellow and red tomatoes made for a nice color with the pale-orange gnocchi.   I made the gnocchi a little too large, for lack of patience when rolling them out.  As it were, the size threw the texture off a bit.  But, they had a nice, soft squash flavor that could lend itself to a lot of different gnocchi dishes.