There is something simply perfect about gnocchi in my opinion. It’s as if pasta and mashed potatoes got together and had a little baby. A gnocchi baby.

Until today gnocchi was that thing on a menu that was a treat left for restaurants. I thought that I couldn’t possibly make it taste as good at home, but boy was I wrong.

With some recent restaurant inspiration I decided a mushroom cream and spinach gnocchi would be the way to go.

Gnocchi isn’t as hard as I had previously thought and cooking it up successfully while dancing around in my kitchen to old school country music and sipping on some brew made my Sunday night.

This batch makes a good 85-100 gnocchi so I decided to freeze 3 of the sections for another day.

I just love how cute they are.

There are endless options when it comes to sauces for gnocchi, but this creamy mushroom and spinach sauce is pretty incredible.

Now all you have to do is gobble it up!

Recipe:

For the gnocchi: 2 pounds of russet potatoes, 1 large egg, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 1/4 all purpose flour.

For the sauce: 4-6 ounces portobello mushrooms, 2 cups vegetable broth, 1/2 tbsp butter, 1 small shallot, 1 clove garlic, 1 tsp thyme, 1/4 cup half and half, 1/4 cup parmesan, 1 cup fresh spinach, S&P to taste.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees, and bake the potatoes for 1 hour. After an hour let the potatoes cool a bit and then peel the skin off. Run the potatoes through a potato ricer, or if you don’t have one push them through a strainer. Cool the potatoes to lukewarm and add the egg and salt, mix together well. Then start adding the flour, about 1/2 cup at a time. The goal is to make a dough that will not stick to your hands.

Once the dough has formed, knead it on the counter for a minute or two. Then cut into 4 sections, one section at a time roll out into a thin rope. With a sharp knife dice along the rope in about 1 inch cuts.

To cook the gnocchi heat a pot of boiling water and in small batches cook the gnocchi for about 2 minutes, or until they float to the surface.

For the sauce: Melt the butter in a saute pan over medium heat. Add the shallots, garlic, thyme, salt and pepper and saute for 2 minutes. Add the shiitake mushrooms and saute another 3 minutes.  Add 1 cup warm vegetable broth and simmer at medium-high heat until it is reduced by half, about 10 minutes. Add the half-and-half and parmesan and simmer until it thickens, about 2-4 minutes. Add a cup of chopped spinach toward the end of the cooking time.

Once the spinach has wilted a bit, add the gnocchi into the pan to mix. Then plate it up and serve!

Enjoy and happy eating!