Gnocchi with Cream and Mushroom Sauce

Some days time just gets away from you, and the cupboard and fridge are pretty much bare. No, don’t say “go out to dinner.” And I haven’t tried any of those services that show up at your door with a complete meal, ready to eat (how do they work?). Besides, I like the challenge of putting together real grown-up food with whatever I can scrounge.

Last time I was at the market I picked up a package of gnocchi (not frozen) for just such an occasion. I knew I wanted a sauce, and I happened to have all the likely suspects, er, ingredients, so I improvised a quick dish.

Gnocchi with Cream and Mushroom Sauce

Ingredients:

1/2 pound mushrooms (our local market has started stocking slightly more exotic mushroom varieties, and I buy them whenever I find them there so they’ll keep ordering them)

1 medium shallot, chopped

4 Tblsp butter (1/2 stick)

Salt and freshly-ground pepper

1/2 cup heavy cream

1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

1 package gnocchi

Instructions:

Slice off the ends of the mushroom stems (if the ends seem dry) and dice them.

Mushrooms (cleaned and chopped)

In a large skillet, melt the butter and saute the chopped shallots until they’re cooked but not brown. Turn up the heat and add the diced mushrooms. When they have absorbed all the butter, reduce the heat to low and add salt and pepper, and toss the mushrooms in the pan. When they start releasing their juices, turn up the heat again and cook for a couple of minutes, stirring frequently. Add the cream and let it thicken slightly. Then set aside the pan while you cook the gnocchi.

Cooking the little critters takes next to no time. Fill a large saucepan with water and bring to a boil. Add the gnocchi. When they come bobbing to the top, they’re done (takes about 3 minutes). Drain them and put them into the pan with the mushrooms. Toss to cover with the sauce.

To serve, place in large flattish bowls, sprinkle with the grated Parmesan, and eat while the gnocchi is still hot.

This is a pretty forgiving dish, in terms of how much of anything you use. Just aim for a good balance of sauce to gnocchi—you don’t want them to be dry. If you don’t happen to have gnocchi on hand, you can use any number of pastas. Same with the mushrooms—use whatever kind you have.

Easy, right? And tasty!

Have patience! It's coming July 9th! 

After fifteen years away, Kate Hamilton never expected to end up back in her hometown of Asheboro, Maryland full time. And she definitely didn’t expect to be leading the charge of recreating the town as a Victorian village and tourist attraction. But as unexpected as the circumstances are, Kate is ready to tackle them.

The town, on the other hand, is going to take some convincing. Ever since Henry Barton’s shovel factory closed down, it’s started to seem like there are more tumbleweeds than tourists rolling down Main Street. Kate’s ideas are good, but ambitious―and her friends and neighbors are worried that finding the money for them would push the town even further into debt.

Luckily, Kate and the handsome historian Joshua Wainwright are two very determined people who may have come up with a solution. The Barton mansion, meant to be the centerpiece of the Victorian village, has proven to be a veritable goldmine of documents about the town’s nineteenth-century history, and Kate is convinced the papers hide something of value. When a dead body turns up in the town library―mere hours before the documents were meant to arrive there themselves―Kate begins to worry that the papers spell danger instead of dollars. It seems that someone doesn’t want these forgotten secrets coming to light, and they’ll do whatever it takes to keep Kate quiet…