Ricotta Gnocchi with Spinach

I'm not an official member of The Daring Kitchen, but when I saw their inaugural challenge was Ricotta Gnocchi, I took it as a good reason to try it out. Ricotta is by far my favorite dairy product. For almost a month in college I ate nothing but ricotta mixed with sugar and cinnamon-- I kid you now. Then, I got a pizzelle maker and discovered I could make pizzelle cannollis. I lived off those for another month. Anyway, if I'd known how easy ricotta gnocchi were to make, they probably would have been another month-long obsession. I'd seen recipes before, and thought my gnocchi would fall apart the second they hit water, or shortly thereafer. But I stand corrected.

At 8pm after a track workout, I was famished and didn't have time to drain the ricotta, or to let the gnocchi sit for an hour after shaping it. So I added a little flour (maybe half a cup) straight into the ricotta mixture that the Daring Kitchen recipe calls for, in addition to coating the gnocchi in flour. Everything worked out perfectly. The whole process to make 2 dozen gnocchi was probably 20 minutes start to finish. I added some spinach-- the last of my week of CSA food-- into the butter mixture that the recipe calls for, and let the whole thing cook for a couple minutes. Delish. Very creamy. Next time I'll experiment with adding seasonings, or spinach, straight into the ricotta, but I didn't want to overdo it the first time.

Spinach-mint chicken penne

It's so great having all these vegetables in my fridge-- not needing to go to the grocery store with a whole list of ingredients to buy, but instead basing my dinner around what I already have. I wanted to use up some spinach and mint tonight, since it already looked a little wilty, but didn't want something too complex, time-consuming, or needing too many ingredients I didn't have. So I started browsing Epicurious for spinach recipes, and got inspired by a simple spinach pasta salad with some chicken for protein. I figured I'd use mint instead of rosemary, and both the tops and bottoms of my spring onions. I was a little hesitant about the mint-spring onion-spinach combination, but it turned out great-- garlicky with a little extra kick and very fresh and green tasting.

What I did: Sauteed the spring onions and a few cloves of garlic in olive oil, then added chicken-- one breast cut into fairly small chunks. Once the chicken was cooked, I added my whole batch of spinach, mint, and some chopped greens from the spring onions. Everything smelled incredibly fresh. Meanwhile, I was cooking half a pound of penne, and dumped it straight into the pan of greens when it was al dente. I added a little chicken broth and let the whole thing simmer for five minutes, then covered liberally with parmesan. Served it still steaming hot-- made about 3 servings, I'd say, so will last for me for lunch and dinner tomorrow.