Pumpkin, Swiss chard and ricotta gnudi (a low carb alternative to ravioli or gnocchi)

After an extrememly warm and sunny September, fall has arrived in all its glory. I can tell by the orange and yellow leaves and the chestnuts covering the sidewalks of the city, I can tell by the variety of apples, mushrooms and pumpkins at the store. I can tell by the plentiful rain, my runny nose and my desire to eat something a little more substantial and comforting for dinner.

 

Enter gnudi.

 

If you are wondering what gnudi are, think of the love child between a raviolo* and a canederlo (or knoedel in German).

 

To be honest, they aren't really closely related to canederli, because gnudi don't actually contain any bread or bread crumbs. They are however reminiscent of them in looks and they share their versatility: you can make them choosing from a wide range of ingredients and you can serve them in broth or with a variety of sauces.

 

But when it comes to the actual preparation, they are much more akin to ravioli, so perhaps the best way to describe them is telling you to picture a naughty raviolo in its birthday suit.

 

 

 

Gnudo is indeed Tuscan dialect for nudo, which means naked in Italian. So gnudi are none other than dumplings or delicate gnocchi (out go the potatoes, in comes the ricotta) made using the same ingredients you would employ for stuffing ravioli, with just a small addition of flour to hold together the fragile ricotta pillows while they are cooking. I used regular flour, but you could probably substitute it with gluten free or no-carb options if you needed/wanted to (rice flour, chickpea flour etc.).

 

Basically, gnudi are a shortcut and they have the added bonus of being low carb. Sure,  butter and Parmesan cheese make a hefty apperance in the recipe, but the true bulk of gnudi is ricotta (which is not a cheese per se) and vegetables. So what it comes down to is that when you are making gnudi you are actually making a quick and pretty healthy vegetarian meal.

 

 

Spinach and ricotta are traditional ingredients for gnudi, but pretty much any leafy green will do and many other vegetables come to mind, from zucchini to eggplant and mushrooms. What is really key is squeezing as much excess water out of the vegetables as you can.

 

You can also swap cheeses: pecorino would work well and so would feta in my opinion.

 

And then there is the sauce: melted butter and Parmesan cheese are a classic, but psssst, if it hadn't been a week night meal (we usually try to keep those reasonably healthy and light), I probably would have fried up some pancetta and served the salty, crunchy morsels scattered over the gnudi. Bacon and pumpkin? Yum.
 

A cream and/or cheese-based sauce would work really well too, if you aren't counting calories. Blue cheese or a raw milk mountain cheese would be perfect to add some character to the ricotta base. And if you are going down the zucchini and eggplant road, a nice tomato sauce would be perfect.
 

 

 

Cannellini and swiss chard stew with poached egg (R.E.R. part 3)

This morning I was reading yet another lovely post by Jamie and although I am by no means an envious person, one to harbor feelings of jealousy or dissatisfaction,  I have to admit I felt a teeny twinge of longing for what she was so acurately describing. Time.

The words "take my time", "slowly", "savor", "calming" kept ringing in my ears.

I miss time. Hours, even just one hour, to quietly flip through my cookbooks in search of something I feel like making, to sort through my ingredients, to slowly chop, mix, marinate, knead. The total luxury of running out to pick up that missing ingredient and to browse through the aisles of the supermarket for further inspiration. Even just moments - if not an hour - of total silence, in which I can focus only on the food, the flavors, the smells. 

While the abovementioned blogger, who inspires me weekly, fingers through page after page of her cookbooks, I am trying to get tiny chocolate fingerprints out of that cookbook I have had for two years and am using for the first time. While she watches her dough rise like a mother watching her baby sleep, I am frantically rocking my baby trying to get him back to sleep while the butter in the pie crust I waited patiently to roll out till the kids were in bed is melting. While she slowly drizzles ganache I am mopping up the marinade I was holding when my daughter decided to ambush me from behind. Nothing is done in "perfect tandem" in my kitchen: as she glides through her motions, I trip over trucks and slide on beads strewn all over my kitchen floor. Nothing is spooned precisely, at most I shake my wooden spoon threateningly at the kids for scratching each other over a new toy. And it definitely isn't quiet. Constant crying, fighting, calling accompanies every step of my syncopated preparation of a meal.

Two things I must clarify.

1) I think Jamie is a wonderful cook, a fantastic writer and a very sensitive woman. I know she has kids of her own and had her share of mayhem before me and deserves every minute of the time she spends baking, cooking and regaling us with the results.

2) I love my kids with every bone in my body, every beat of my heart. I know there will be a day when they are older and will have their own lives, when I will pine for these moments together. I will miss the dimples in there sticky, chubby fingers, my daughter's hair tousled from wrestling with her brother. The way my son stands between me and the stove, facing my way, puts his arms around my legs and sticks his head forcefully between them (yes, right beneath my crotch) when he wants attention, when his patience waiting for me to stop cooking has run out. But oh, the frustration of never being able to do things the way I want or plan from beginning to end. The luxury of an afternoon all to myself to cook without interruption, to be able to improvise without using stuff I shopped for the previous week end, to be able to take pictures in daylight without a child piggyback-riding on me while I try to keep the camera still.

A taste of Valtellina: Pizzoccheri and Polenta taragna o concia. Mountain food not to be taken lightly.



Bresaola, the local cured specialty



We just got back from a week end in the mountains and after a fortnight of scortchingly hot weather it was a relief to have to wear fleeces and socks for two days and still be cold. It also required lots of hearty food and wine, so who's complaining?

The minute we approached C and R's, they started cooking up a feast and the marathon eating began. A real butter, pork and cheese fest, I'm telling you.