Brunch for Bitches: Ricotta Gnocchi: So Easy and So Delicious

The morning of Saturday, September 17th, I found myself with 16 ounces of part-skim ricotta cheese in the fridge, with an expiration date of...Saturday, September 17th. Uh-oh. What do you do with 2 cups of ricotta cheese? Make ricotta gnocchi, of course! This is a super easy, super healthy, super delicious, all around super recipe (it's a slightly tweaked version of one of my work's recipes). I made a double batch (obviously, because I needed to get rid of my ricotta cheese STAT) and it yielded 175 gnocchi - yes, I counted every individual piece of gnocchi...I wanted to be able to report exactly how much gnocchi you can expect from this recipe (that's how much I love you all). So, here's what you need:

Ricotta Gnocchi

Ingredients

-1 egg

-1 cup part-skim ricotta cheese

-1/2 cup whole-wheat flour

-1/2 cup all-purpose flour

-optional: 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

And here's what you do:

Directions

1. Put a large pot of water on the stove and bring it to a boil (this can occur while you're making the gnocchi dough)

2. Crack egg into medium-size bowl and beat with a fork (or whisk, if you're savvy like that)

3. Add ricotta cheese, both flours, and nutmeg (if using). Mix together until sticky dough forms.

4. Divide dough into 6-7 logs.

5. Lightly flour a cutting board, as well as your hands, and proceed to roll out each log (one at a time) into a thinner log (about 12-14 inches in width), using a back-and-forth motion. Add flour to the cutting board if the dough starts sticking (the dough is rather sticky, so it will definitely stick to your hands; but if you keep flouring your hands, that will reduce the amount of dough that sticks to you).

6. Cut each log into 1/2 inch wide pieces (these are your gnocchi).

7. Your water should be boiling by now, so drop the individual gnocchi into the water (be careful of splashing yourself with scalding hot water!) - I'd recommend batches of 10 gnocchi at a time.

8. When the gnocchi start to float (after 30-40 seconds), remove gnocchi from water using a slotted spoon or spatula, and place them into a colander to drain.

9. Voila! You made gnocchi! According to my calculations you should have approximately 87-88 gnocchi (you don't actually need to count). Now what do you do with them?

I ended up giving about half of my double batch to one of my bitches and I froze almost all of the rest. I kept 3/4 cup of gnocchi in my fridge, so that I could make some for dinner tonight. I created a rather tasty dish using some leftover pesto I had in my freezer, as well as some kale and an heirloom tomato from the farmer's market. Here's one way to use your gnocchi:

Ricotta Gnocchi with Pesto (served over Sauteed Kale and Tomato)

Serving Size: 1 person (though you could easily double this recipe for more people)

Ingredients:

-1 tomato, of any kind, sliced or diced however you'd like

(you could use 1 cup of cherry/grape tomatoes, in which case you'd want to slice them in half or quarters)

-3-4 cups of kale leaves & stems, roughly chopped (make sure to separate the leaves from the stems and to keep them in different piles)

*you can easily substitute for whatever type of greens you like (ex: spinach, swiss chard)*

-1/4 cup onion, sliced or diced (it's up to you... tonight I sliced)

-1-2 garlic cloves, minced (if you're not kissing anyone when you make this, I'd advocate for 2 cloves)

-1 heaping tablespoon of pesto, store bought or homemade (recipe to come at some point)

-3/4 cup of Ricotta Gnocchi

-2 tablespoons of olive oil, divided

-salt and pepper to taste

-optional: 2 tablespoons mozzarella cheese

Directions:

1. Place sauté pan on stove, over medium heat

2. Pour 1 tablespoon of olive oil into pan (once the pan is hot), followed by the onions and kale stems; cook for 5 minutes

3. Add the kale leaves to onion & stem mixture (depending on the size of your pan, you may need to do this in batches - wait for some of the kale to cook down before adding more) and cook until wilted