Sweet Potato Gnocchi with Gouda Cheese Sauce

I found this recipe on my new favorite website (read: addiction) Pinterest. It combines two of my favorite things: gnocchi and cheese. For those of you that don't know, gnocchi are Italian dumplings usually made from potatoes. It's one of my ultimate comfort foods. Original recipe from The Noshery.

Sweet Potato Gnocchi with Gouda Cheese Sauce

Gnocchi:

1 lb. sweet potatoes (yams), rinsed, patted dry, pierced all over with fork.

6 oz. fresh ricotta cheese

1 T light brown sugar

1 tsp. + 1 T salt

1/4 tsp. nutmeg

1 3/4 C all-purpose flour

Sauce:

2 C milk, heated

1/4 onion

3 sage leaves

Salt and white pepper, to taste

3 T unsalted butter

3 T all-purpose flour

1 C Gouda cheese, shredded

Line a large sheet with parchment. Place sweet potatoes on plate; microwave on high until tender, about 5-6 minutes per side. Cut in half and cool. Scrape sweet potato flesh into bowl and mash; transfer 1 1/2 C to large bowl. Add ricotta cheese; blend well. Add Parmesan cheese, brown sugar, 1 teaspoon salt, and nutmeg; mash to blend. Mix in flour, about 1/2 cup at a time, until soft dough forms.

Turn dough out onto floured surface; divide into 3 equal pieces. Rolling between palms and floured work surface, form each piece into a 20-inch-long rope (about 1 inch in diameter), sprinkling with flour as needed if sticky. Cut each rope into 20 pieces. Roll each piece over tines of fork to indent. Transfer to baking sheet.

Bring large pot of water to boil; add 1 T salt and return to boil. Working in batches, boil gnocchi until tender, 5-6 minutes. Transfer gnocchi to clean rimmed baking sheet. Cool completely. (Can be made 4 hours ahead. Let stand at room temperature.)

In a small sauce pot combine milk, onion, garlic, and sage. Place over medium heat and heat until tiny bubbles appear around the edges of the pan, about 5 minutes. Do not boil. Remove pan from heat and let stand for about 10 minutes. Remove and discard onion, garlic and sage leaves. Cover to keep warm. In saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter. Stir in flour and cook, stirring, until blended, 1 minute.

Gradually add the milk, whisking constantly. Reduce heat to low and continue to whisk until sauce is smooth and slightly thickened, 4 to 5 minutes. Dip a wooden spoon in the sauce to coat it. Pass your finger through the sauce on the back of the spoon, it should leave a clean track.

Strain the sauce into a clean saucepan. Whisk in 1 C of Gouda cheese. Cook over low heat, whisking constantly, until cheese is melted and sauce is smooth. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Easy Cheesy Lasagna

This is the lasagna my mom always makes. Try as I might, I have never found a tastier recipe (especially for how simple it is) It's great for kids because it doesn't use ricotta cheese and if your kids are picky (like I was/am) you can make it without chunks of tomatoes or onions depending on the sauce you like. This isn't your usual blog-worthy recipe. It's really easy and simple...basically combining store bought items and baking...but you Facebook fans asked for it so here it is!

Ingredients:
About 12 lasagna noodles (UNCOOKED: one of the major selling points of this recipe)
Meat sauce: either homemade, if you have it, or get 2 jars of store-bought and mix it with 1 lb. of cooked meat.
1 big tub of cottage cheese (I use 2% low fat, don't got fat free...no bueno)
2-3 cups shredded mozarella cheese
Parmesan cheese for sprinkling on top...or throughout if you're me.

Directions:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees
In a 9x13 casserole dish put a thin layer of meat sauce, then 4 or so uncooked noodles, just however many fit, then more meat sauce, cottage cheese, a healthy sprinkling of mozarella, and repeat until the dish is full (mine fits about 3 layers). Sprinkle the parmesan on top of the mozarella on the last layer, cover with foil and bake for 1 hour, taking the tin foil off for the last 15 minutes. Remove when bubbling and let sit for 10 minutes to solidify a bit, unless you like lasagna soup. Done!

Lemon Spinach and Bacon Tortellini Bake

I have an addiction lately. It's not the best addiction in the world to have....I'm addicted to buying the frozen tortellini at Costco. You get two big containers for $9.00 and THEN it usually goes on sale for around $7.50! How can you pass that up? So, when I was browsing one of my FAVORITE blog sites http://www.ourbestbites.com/, and I saw this recipe for a tortellini bake in a lemon cream sauce I was excited for several reasons: 1. It uses my tortellini. 2. I already had all the ingredients. 3. It uses up that spinach I also have a problem with buying. I made a few slight modifications to her recipe (and I doubled it because I live with a hungry hungry hippo and the doubled recipe is below) but her recipe has pictures. I suggest combining recipes for the best of both worlds :)

Ingredients:
1 48 oz. pack of 7 cheese tortellini from Costco (or about 4-6 cups of any tortellini)
8 pieces of bacon (I used turkey bacon)
4 cups of fresh spinach
3 tbsp. butter
3-4 tbsp. flour
4 cups of milk (skim is fine - I used half skim, half 2%)
1 tsp. of basil
1 tsp. red pepper flakes (optional but it adds a nice kick)
Salt and pepper to taste
4 tbsp. lemon juice
1 1/2 cups each of mozarella and parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 350.
Fill a large pot with water and bring to a boil for your tortellini. Add tortellini and cook according to package directions, drain and set aside (if you don't know how to boil pasta by now, you are in trouble.)
While pasta is cooking, in a big skillet cook your bacon until slightly crisp. If you are using real bacon, reserve about 3 or so tbsp of the grease to make your roux. If you are using turkey bacon, it doesn't have as much grease so scrape your pan of any burnt grease and add 3 tbsp butter instead.
Melt your butter and put about 6 minced cloves of garlic in the butter and let cook for a bit, 30 seconds or so. Add the flour and stir around a bit until a paste forms. Slowly add milk and whisk until smooth. Something the other recipe does NOT say, it will be thin! It thickens when you take it off the heat. If you want, you can add a little more flour just to be sure it makes a nice thick sauce. At this point, add basil, the red pepper flakes, salt and pepper, and lemon juice. I rarely have fresh lemons on hand so I used the kind in the bottle. It worked out just fine. Once you stir it all together, taste it. Add a little more lemon if you like it more lemony or red pepper if you like spicy. Remove from heat and allow to sit and thicken a bit.
Now crumble the bacon and run a knife through the spinch a few times. Don't worry about cutting it up too small. It will wilt in the oven so just cut it up a little so you don't have huge leaves.
Add the bacon, spinach and about half of each of the cheeses to the pasta and mix it all together. Then pour the sauce in and mix it all up and pour the whole shebang into a 9x13" casserole dish. cover and bake for 20 minutes then remove the tinfoil and bake for another 5-10 minutes until the cheese is bubbly.

Italian-Style Spinach Dumplings

While cuisine hunting on the internet, I found a recipe for some "arugula dumplings" that sounded absolutely delicious! Unfortunately, I don't keep any of the main ingredients required on standby in my kitchen. I do, however, keep spinach on hand in the freezer, which made me think, "I know the basic components of a dumpling, so let's give this a shot!" And thus, the Italian-Style Spinach Dumpling was born!

I am rather proud of this recipe as I took that arugula inspiration and took it in a whole new direction... all by myself. I find this is one of the most satisfying aspects of cooking and baking: creating a culinary Frankenstein's monster all your own. It's even better when that monster turns out to be quite tasty!

Ingredients:
8 oz frozen spinach, thawed, drained well, and chopped
4 oz (approx. 4-5 slices) bread, chopped finely (I used wheat because it is what we routinely buy and we always have it on hand, but you could use 4 oz white bread or French bread with the crusts cut off for a milder flavor)
2 eggs
1/3 cup light sour cream
3 Tbsp milk
3/4 cup real Parmesan cheese, grated (you won't want to use the bottled "sprinkly cheese" for this recipe)
1/2 tsp garlic powder
Salt to taste (I used about a tsp of salt)
1/2 - 3/4 all-purpose flour (measure will vary; you will add between 1/2 cup and 3/4 cup to get the needed consistency)
Homemade or bottled spaghetti sauce
3/4 cup Mozzarella cheese



Directions:
1. Heavily salt a pot of water and start it boiling on the stove.
2. Whisk eggs, sour cream, and milk together until uniform in consistency.
3. Add garlic powder and salt; stir.
4. Add bread, spinach, and Parmesan cheese, mixing well to combine.
5. Stir in flour a little at a time until mixture reaches a dough-like consistency ( a small ball of the "dough" should hold itself together).
6. Roll dumpling "dough" into tablespoon-sized balls. Drop about 10 balls at a time into boiling water. (Note: if this is your first time making these, you may want to cook just one dumpling to start with and taste test it once it done. After tasting it, you can decide to add more salt, flour, cook them longer, etc. before you cook all of them and it is too late to alter the "dough." Many a culinary catastrophe has been avoided by a simple taste test!)
7. Cook dumplings about 5 minutes (after they float to the top of the water, cook an additional minute to ensure egg-y middle is cooked all the way through). The center of the dumplings should be firm, not slimy.
8. Remove dumplings from water with a slotted spoon, being sure to drain all water.
9. Place all dumplings in an oven-safe baking dish. Repeat process until all dumplings are cooked and in the baking dish.
10. Cover dumplings with spaghetti sauce. Layer mozzarella cheese evenly over sauce.
11. Broil dumplings in the oven for 2-3 minutes or until cheese on top is melted.

Stromboli

I got the basic recipe for this out of my Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook but one day I did my own thing with what I had in the fridge and it's waaaayyy better than the original recipe. That being said, this is a good recipe for using up stuff in your fridge (i.e. the large and inexpensive bags of spinach I cannot resist buying at Costco always promising myself I will eat it all....) so you won't find specific measurements in this one. Just use how much looks good. The last time few times I've made it it's been a little different but each time it's so delicious.

Ingredients:

1 store bought pizza crust
Sliced or shredded mozarella or provolone cheese
Lunch meat (I prefer turkey but have used ham)
Hard Salami (I've also used pancetta, and prosciutto - I like to say any "fancy Italian meat will do here)
Spinach
Black olives
Italian dressing (my favorite is 'Cheese Fantastico' probably because of the name...)
1 egg
Italian seasoning, garlic salt (Lowry's is the best!), and parmesan cheese for topping.

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees and spray a cookie sheet with cooking spray or drizzle with olive oil.
On a clean and lightly floured surface, CAREFULLY roll out the pizza crust. If you're me, you ALWAYS end up tearing it. Just mush it together to cover the holes until it somewhat resembles a 13"x10" rectangle. It doesn't have to be perfect!
Lay the lunch meat on the dough keeping it about 1/2 inch from the edges. I usually use 4 to 6 pieces. Top with a handful of mozarella cheese and then put a layer of fresh spinach on the cheese. Now layer on your "fancy meat". I've also done this with just plain old ham and turkey and that works too! Put more cheese on top if you like it cheesy...I do....and finally drizzle some Italian dressing on all of that.
Now carefully roll it up. Don't worry, you'll tear it a little, just pinch it back together and don't stress. Pinch the seam together and smush the edges closed. Transfer to the cookie sheet, seam side down.
Beat the egg in a bowl and use a pastry brush to brush the egg over the top. This will make it nice and brown and pretty. Sprinkle the top with the Italian seasoning, garlic salt and parmesan cheese and then be sure to poke several little slits along the top to vent.
Bake for 30 minutes and let cool for 10 minutes. Slice it up and eat!

This serves Mike and I as a main dish with salad and we have about 6 inches left over. If you have more than 4 people, though, I suggest making two.