Butternut Squash Gnocchi

Gnocchi, butternut squash and spicy sausage – It came to me in a dream this Fall, and I had a chance to give it a try on Sunday for a Week’s Worth of Lunches.  I ate every last drop of it today.  This is a keeper.

Ingredients

Gnocchi (whole wheat or sweet potato preferred), 2 packages

Extra Virgin Olive Oil

1 small onion, chopped

2 carrots, chopped

1 celery rib, chopped

1 lb mild turkey sausage, removed from casings.

Salt and pepper to taste

Trader Joe’s Butternut Squash Soup (another Trader Joe’s Hit)

Nutmeg, fresh grated, to taste

Baby spinach, one bag

Shredded fontina (about a cup)

A sprinkling of toasted chopped walnuts (if you have them)

Directions

Boil water in a large stock pot for gnocchi. 

In a large non-stick electric stick, heat a swirl or two of oil.  Add onions, carrots and celery and sauté on medium heat for 5 minutes.  Add the turkey sausage.  Brown and break up, like ground meat.  Season with salt and pepper.  Once the sausage is just cooked through, add about ¾ of the soup-in-a-box.  Let it boil up, then turn down to simmer.  Sprinkle with a little nutmeg.  Taste.  Add more salt, pepper or nutmeg if needed.  Toss the entire bag of baby spinach over the top of sauce, and place the lid on top.  Keep simmering.

Add a palmful of salt to the boiling water and cook gnocchi according to package directions, about 3 minutes.  Drain gnocchi well, then add to the sauce and spinach.  Mix it up to wilt the spinach and incorporate the sauce and gnocchi.  Top each serving with a sprinkling of fontina, toasted walnuts, salt and pepper.

Makes 8 serving at 6 points per serving.  Great for lunch.

Bean Sorting

I’ve avoided dried beans for years.  But, I love lentil soup.  Elegant, simple, exotic.  I get it at restaurants, but have been afraid to make it myself.  One reason:  sorting the beans.  Every single lentil recipe I’ve read has you sorting the beans.  What the hell does that mean?  Sort them into what?  Big ones and little ones?  Darker medium green ones and lighter medium green ones?  What?  Some recipes say, “pick over,” the beans.  What for?

I have no idea.  I asked Colleen, who knows a thing or two about ingredients.  “Pick out the weird, odd ones.”  She said. 

“Why?”  I said.

“Cause they taste funny when you leave them in?  I don’t know.”  She replied.

I looked it up on the internet and, surprisingly enough, there were really no answers.

So this summer, I set off to make lentil soup.  I was being clever and local, so I decided to substitute the kale in the recipe for fresh mustard greens grown here in Northeastern Ohio.  Mmmmm.  I “picked over” the beans.  Ultimately, I decided to pull out the brighter yellow flatter ones.  They almost looked like half beans.  It was painstaking.  There were a lot of beans to sort through.

I made the soup. 

The soup was…no good.  I mean, the beans were okay.  But the mustard greens?  The whole soup stunk like pungent weeds.  Big mistake; huge.

Three months later, on the first day of November, with a pantry full of dried lentils, I tried again.  I didn’t bother sorting the beans this time.  Screw it.  If I get funny tasting beans, so be it.

The results?  Fantastic.  Truly a good, servable to others, decent soup.

I used a Weight Watchers recipe and added some spices.  Here it is, for three points a serving.

2 carrots, peeled and cut into half moons

2 celery ribs, cut into crescents

1 medium onion, chopped

2 cups dried lentils, unsorted

3 dried bay leaves

3 fresh thyme sprigs (throw them in, then pick out the stems after the soup is cooked)

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

1 tablesppon curry powder

1 teaspon smoked spanish paprika

2 boxes of chicken stock (8 cups)

5 slices Canadian bacon, chopped.

Dump everything into a crock pot on low.  Cook covered for 6 hours.  When you get home from work, dump in the chopped Canadian bacon.  Unload the dishwasher, feed the cats, open the mail, uncork a bottle of pinot noir.  Soup is done.

The Perfect Storm: Pumpkin Risotto with Lobster

So it didn't storm really last night, but it was cold and rainy and we stayed home.  Dinner came together like a perfect storm, throwing together whatever we had in the fridge, freezer and pantry.  This was so good, I did not even stop to take a picture of it. 

Ingredients:

Olive Oil
Small onion, minced
1 cup-ish Arborio rice
A swirl or two of oaky chardonnay (I used Toasted Head)
1 sprig of fresh thyme
1/2 box leftover beef stock (about 2 cups)
2 cups of warm water, with sea salt and fresh ground pepper
1/2 can pureed pumpkin
Fresh nutmeg
1 cup or so of shredded fontina
A few pats of butter
2 frozen lobster tails
1 lemon

What to do:

Boil water in a large stock pot to boil lobster tails.  I boiled them covered for about 10 minutes, then I turned the heat off, added two lemon wedges and salt, then covered the pan again and let the tails sit while I cooked the risotto.

Heat oil in large saute pan over medium heat.  Add onion and cook about three minutes or until soft.  Add risotto and toast for a minute or two, stirring.  Add the wine, let it cook and soak into the risotto for a minute or so.  Then, add the stock little by little, then most of the water (save maybe a quarter cup), for the next twenty minutes or so, until it's all absorbed and the texture of the risotto is just almost cooked (soft, but still chewy).  Add pumpkin, a bit of salt, then fresh nutmeg.  Turn heat off and cover.

I let the almost finished risotto sit while we had lentil soup.  That's another story. 

When we were ready for the main course, I turned the heat back on the risotto, low, added the rest of the water and mixed it in, turned the heat off again, then added the cheese and a pat of butter.

I took the lobster meat off the tails. 

We plated it as follows:  A few scoops of risotto in the bowl, then the lobster meat, a squeeze of fresh lemon over the top, then a pat of melted butter.  Sprinkle a little parsley.  I added some pine nuts (again).

This was the best risotto ever.  Seriously.