I Have a Disease So I Made Ricotta Gnocchi

Hey everyone, back again. So it turns out that I have a disorder, an illness in fact. It’s called Fancyizingosis. Monday night Kyle was at school and I thought ‘I guess I’ll have some KD for dinner’ (For any Americans reading this entry, KD is Kraft Macaroni & Cheese, I’m not sure that it is dubbed ‘Kraft Dinner’ south of the border). Immediately following this decision, I set about planning how to fancy-ize it. Should I make the sauce using crème fraiche, an anchovy and a little cayenne, then cover in aged Gruyère and broil it? Or hydrate the orange powder with white wine, plain yogourt, and pink peppercorns then toss in some baby zucchini, lightly fried in butter and garlic? Or in honour of his 250th birthday, simmer the noodles in a Guinness and then cover it in a blanket of Guinness Cheddar and stud the whole mess with tiny heirloom white currant tomatoes? Then I thought ‘Get over yourself! Can’t you just make a box of KD without messing with it somehow? Are you TOO GOOD for an honest Kraft Macaroni and Cheese?’ Well apparently I am, and not too proud of it either. It’s THE DISEASE! I tried to keep it simple, but the final KD ended up having the aged Gruyère in it and some sharp 3 year old Cheddar too. All of this to say that I took it as a sign that it was time to cook/blog on the C&O again. 7 out of 10 doctors agree that it is the recommended treatment for Fancyizingosis.

SOOOOOOOOO the next night I decided I needed to try to make gnocchi, but I read somewhere on the interwebs that ricotta gnocchi was light and pillowy as opposed to the traditional potato version which can be quite heavy. I don’t know if I agree with this assessment, but they were good. It also gave me the opportunity to use more squash soup, which miraculously refuses to spoil (YAY!). We still have an entire container left and the idea of tossing it down the drain does not appeal to me. If you do not have cauldron of soup left over from a family gathering or something similar, you could use a pre-packaged soup or puree, or blend up a bottle of roasted red peppers and simmer with wine and a little oregano. Or even your favourite tomato sauce.
One last thing to note before we get to the pictures, next week I will be participating in a blog showdown with Caty Marzi of Snack We are focusing on Chicken. However, she’s all about honest, non-pretentious food, so I may be at a disadvantage with my recent bout of Fancyizingosis. Can’t wait though, I’m really excited!


It starts with 2 cups of ricotta cheese (I used low fat, apparently that’s a taboo, but it turned out just fine)



I’m not entirely sure how much parmesan I was supposed to put in, but I didn’t have much left so I threw in the whole thing. It was about 1/3 cup.

Add 2 lightly beaten eggs

And 1 ¼ cups of regular flour, then some salt and pepper (I used white pepper to keep it clean looking)

The final dough will be VERY sticky. And although I don’t recommend it because of the raw eggs, I took a cue from the cats as to how to get any sticky dough off my hands… ANYWAYS, make sure that you flour your work surface and your hands, or the dough itself so that you can actually work with it.

Working in batches, roll it into logs about ¾ inch in diameter and then cut it into ½ inch slices.

You can pat it into little lozenge shapes and then put a fork imprint on it, but at that point my Fancyizingosis had abated and I gave up on the fork imprint fairly quickly.

Boil for 3-4 minutes and drain.

I simmered the squash soup with about 1 cup of red wine until it was dark and reduced to ‘sauce’ consistency. Look how satiny and savoury that looks! Or maybe it’s just me because I know how it tasted…

Then guess what you do with it?

Well that’s it for this time folks, don’t forget the chicken showdown next week. And I will try to include Mlle Olive herself in the next post, you know, since the blog is partially named after her. She’s not a very good writer though. xoxoxo