Gnocchi!! (Product Review)

Growing up, we never used prepackaged food products, so everthing was always cooked from scratch. At the time, we always figured that we were getting cheated somehow and would on occasion insist on being fed wonderful gourmet meals like Kraft Dinner or Hamburger Helper. Ahem. It is somewhat telling that now my siblings and I all cook and all cook pretty much from, you guessed it, scratch. In truth, not relying on preprocessed foods in the first place made switching over to a gluten and dairy free diet a hell of a lot simpler. All I have to do is switch a few basic things over instead of having to try to find replacements for most of the recipe. However, when one gets home at almost 9pm and is very hungry because lunch was at 2, pulling up a from scratch meal can seriously suck. I don't really want to start peeling veggies, and in the summer all I would do is throw together a salad with a quick protein (beans or an egg or something) but it is February in Montreal, and it is currently snowing and I don't want a salad, thank you. This is where keeping a few staple ingredients on hand that can be whipped up to a hearty meal (in less than 20 minutes) comes in handy. Say hello to my go to: gnocchi.

Gnocchi, when done right, are little balls of pillowy goodness, best served pipping hot and smothered in some sort of (in my opinion) runny sauce. When done incorrectly, feed them to someone you don't like as they are more akin to little rocks. They use potatoes as the base, so technically aren't pasta, though they will more often than not contain a flour of some kind as a binder, and sometimes also egg. They are generally to be found in with the pastas at your grocer, however, though not always. There are a number of different companies who do produce them commercially, though the only one that I have found consistently with gluten free options is the Aurora brand. They actually produce five different varieties of gnocchi: whole wheat, potato, spelt, corn and rice. The first three all contain wheat flour or gluten (in the form of the spelt), so that leaves the corn and the rice kinds. I will be very honest, I do not like the corn variety. The flavour is fine, it's the texture that gets me. Gritty, much in the same way that corn meal is, which really isn't all that surprising. I just can't get over the mouth feel of it to really enjoy it. The rice gnocchi, however, does not suffer from that problem and the flavour is such that it's as much a vehicle for whatever sauce you put on it as anything.

 

 

 

So, tonights dinner: rice gnocchi with a bacon carbonara sauce. Easy enough. Cut up the bacon strips into 1 inch pieces and fry up in a large skillet while bringing a pot of salted and lightly oiled water to a boil. Once the water comes to a boil, add the gnocchi to the boiling water very carefully! They are hard little nubbins and will splash into the pot if you aren't careful. I usually cheat and spoon them in with the slotted spoon I take them out with. Leave them to boil until they float, at which time they are cooked. Try not to let them boil over long as the longer they cook the denser they get and they are best light and fluffy. While the gnocchi are cooking, add about 2/3 of a cup of cream (we used the MimicCream that we had left) and a jar of pasta sauce to the bacon. For us that meant using the last jar of the tomato sauce I put up last summer, about 2 cups worth. As soon as the gnocchi are cooked and floating, spoon them directly into the sauce and stir to coat. Serve immediately with vegan parmesan and enjoy!

I guess you could say that I sort of cheated tonight, since this is not a new product to me, but something that I keep on hand for quick and easy dinners. Knowing that I can incorporate something this versatile that is also gluten/dairy free though makes this something that I would certainly recommend as a pantry staple, especially if you on occasion need something quick. Enjoy!