The word “gnocchi” means “lumps”
Monday, September 14th, 2009How appetizing! I set out on Sunday to make myself a batch of “lumps”. Yum. My friend Maggie had emailed me a recipe for sweet potato gnocchi that I thought sounded really delicious (which is odd since I don’t like sweet potatoes. Go figure!). With the crisp Autumn air starting to move in, I thought this would be the perfect first Fall dish to make of the season. I made some slight recipe modifications, and voile! I had myself one healthy batch of gnocchi.
The sweet potatoes were a great substitute for your everyday Idaho-variety. They’re extremely rich in complex carbs, fiber, beta carotene, and vitamins C & B6. I cooked the potatoes before mashing, and then added in the ricotta, cinnamon, S + P.
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An easy substitute of King Arthur Whole Wheat flour (my favorite) was made.
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Now that’s a nice looking ball o’dough.
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I ended up needing to add a bit more flour than the recipe called for, but was then able to roll out the dough without creating a horribly sticky mess. I divided the dough into 6 balls, and then rolled out each one into a log and cut 1-inch wide pieces.
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This was my first ever attempt at making gnocchi, so my technique definitely has much room for improvement (then again, if you’re making “lumps”, do they even really need a form? ;-) ). Towards the end of the batch I started to pick up speed. Here’s my gnocchi making skillzzz…
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I decided to serve the gnocchi with a maple brown butter sauce – so amazing!! I was wishing I had some sage for the sauce… next time!
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Here are the healthy ingredients that I swapped in:
GNOCCHI -
- 2 large sweet potatoes
- 2/3 cup part skim ricotta
- 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
- 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
MAPLE BROWN BUTTER SAUCE -
- 1/2 cup Smart Balance Light Butter Spread (or something similar)
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 2 tablespoons light maple syrup
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
Follow Giada De Laurentiis’ recipe here, just make sure to make the healthy ingredient swaps listed above!
Enjoy : )
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