What drew me to this recipe in the San Francisco Chronicle was the list of ingredients in the title. I
love gnocchi, butternut squash and kale and imagined they would be a killer
combo. Tasty and healthy at the same time. It was a fairly easy recipe that
took little preparation, as I was able to use pre-made gnocchi, pre-cut squash
and pre-cut kale.
Unfortunately I was wrong on several counts and actually chock this up as a bit of a failure. It is healthy and it was easy, but it wasn’t
terribly tasty. The gnocchi gets quite gummy and sticks together, the squash
doesn’t get that nice brown crisp that adds to its flavor when roasted, and the
pre-cut kale had some thick ribs that made for a more than few nasty mouthfuls.
And even with the addition of salt and parmesan cheese, it lacked any oomph or
real flavor. It was a bit soggy and the liquid was not thickened at all.
Overall, I cannot recommend this dish, but in fairness to my goal at the
beginning of the year, I wanted to post my failures as well as my successes, so
if you are brave, you can try and recreate this and judge for yourself, or
modify it in a way that would make it tastier (more cheese? herbs? pancetta or
bacon? Sausage?)
Recipe after the jump