The potato-kale gnocchi I made for dinner tonight was super yummy, but totally wrong. The recipe, from Jack Bishop’s fabulous The Complete Italian Vegetarian Cookbook, emphasized the need to squeeze every bit of water out of the kale, and warned of the perils of incorporating too much flour. Not too wet; not too dry. Somehow mine turned out too wet and too dry. It was obviously gummy, yet too dry to roll out into “dough ropes.” What happened? Did I squeeze the kale too much? I really did do a very good job of squeezing that kale. Maybe it was the moisture content of the potatoes. Or maybe it was my judgment. The book did say, “you will need to use some judgment here.” Aha! The forgotten ingredient.
The final product was gummy and lumpy. But delicious! Even Z loved it, and he thinks russet potatoes taste like bile. Each time he asked what I was making I would say, “kale gnocchi,” hoping he wouldn’t connect our dinner with the russets baking in the oven (he also has a fear of white sauces, so when I make homemade mayonnaise I am careful to call it “aioli”). Since the suggested accompaniments of gorgonzola sauce or pesto are not “migraine friendly” (pesto, with it’s nuts and aged cheese) I sauced it with browned butter and basil chiffonade. Butter is my new best friend, now that so many other tasty toppings are forbidden. Organic Valley has “pasture butter” available now. I haven’t found any local pastured butter; I hear no one makes it since the retail price would be prohibitively high. Foods from pastured cows, milk, butter, meat, contain high quantities of CLA (conjugated linoleic acid) which, research suggests, fights cancer and reduces abdominal fat. Bring on the butter!
