Ricotta Gnocchi with Brown Butter Sauce

Alrighty, people. You ask...I deliver.

Sort of.

This is the vegetarian dish that I decided to do last week. It's a PC Recipe from my 29 Minutes To Dinner cookbook. OK, here it goes.

Ingredients:

1 lemon, 1 15oz tub ricotta cheese, 2oz grated Parmesan cheese, 1 egg, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/2 cup flour, 1/4 cup butter, 2 tbsp oil, 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes, 2 garlic cloves, 1 tbsp fresh parsley, spinach leaves, 2 cups pasta (I added this)

First, zest the lemon into a mixing bowl.  I use my batter bowl because it has a nice sturdy handle...which is a necessity to me.  Juice the lemon to get 1 tsp juice. Set the juice aside.

This is also when I cooked my pasta...which is not in the original recipe. I just like pasta a lot and figured it'd be good with it.

Add the cheeses.

and

Now add the egg.

Add the flour and mix until it's all incorporated. Don't over mix it or you'll have some seriously tough gnocchi.

It'll look something like this:

Now, lay out a piece of parchment paper and flour it lightly.

Now you form the gnocchi. You want to do round tbsp sized balls. Normally I would use my small scoop but it disappeared...along with my tbsp measuring spoon. Funny how that always happens right when I need them.  I blame the kids.

Anyway, I took what I thought seemed like a Tbsp and just rolled them until they were roundish.

Now you heat up the oil & 2 tbsp of butter in a skillet. While it was heating I prepared the ingredients for the sauce. I basically put the parsley, red pepper flakes & pressed garlic into a dish for easy access.

OK...the oil and butter. Let the butter melt and cook over MEDIUM heat until it just starts to brown. Don't let it heat up to high. Trust me.

Add the gnocchi.

Let them cook about 2 minutes per side.

Once they are done, remove from the pan and keep warm.

Now for the sauce.

Add the remaining butter to the skillet & cook for about 4 minutes until it is a deep brown color...be sure to swirl the skillet so that the butter doesn't burn. Remove the skillet from the heat. Add the juice, parsley, garlic & red pepper flakes.

It'll sizzle up immediately. Swirl it around for a sec.

And that's pretty much it.  I put some spinach and pasta on each plate. Topped with some of the gnocchi & drizzled the sauce over it all.

OK...here's my review.

It was good. Not my favorite meal, but it was good, and very filling.

I'm going to try it again, but I'll make a few changes.  I wasn't a fan of the lemon. It was a little too much in my opinion.  I think next time I will chop up some spinach and mix it in with the gnocchi dough. I think having some angel hair & tomatoes with them would be fantastic as well.

And I totally think that some chopped bacon over top would be killer.  But that would kill the whole vegetarian idea.  So you do with that what you will.

Try this recipe.  Let me know what you think of it!

:)