Pumpkin Pie - no, make mine a gnocchi

On the garden front the seedlings are popping up.  The small greenhouse we purchased is keeping all our babies snug - kale, broccoli, cabbages and two types of lettuces are up are all doing well,  The cabbages are now about 1cm tall and growing!  This is the first year that we have had a plan, a written down plan of what we need to plant and when.  I worked backwards from Labour Weekend (traditionally THE gardening weekend in NZ) and worked out germination times, so I knew when to plant the seeds in relation to when I could plant seedlings out in the garden.  The pumpkins and squash will not be planted for some weeks but we still have stored pumpkins.  We have only recently been able to harvest carrots, and with the corn long finished had been relying on the pumkins for our yellow/orange vegetable in our "eat a rainbow a day" regime.  After a while it becomes difficult to think of how to serve them that is a little different.  We also still have a good crop of sgae growing in the garden.  Pumpkin Gnocchi will convince non-pumpkin eaters to enjoy them.

Pumpkin Gnocchi (KB)

These quantities will serve 4 but are easily extendable.
1kg pumpkin, peeled and cut into 3cm cubes
Olive oil or cooking spray
salt and white pepper to taste
1 - 1.5 cups of plain flour
1/4 cup pecorino (or parmesan), finely grated
125g butter
1/2 cup sage leaves
Extra pecorino to serve

Preheat the oven to 200 deg C.  Line a baking tray with baking paper.  Place the pumpkin on the prepared tray and spray with oil or cooking spray.  Season with salkt and pepper.  Roast pumpkin for 30 - 35 minutes or until soft.  Transfer to a large bow and mash the pumpkin until smooth.

Stir the flour into the pumpkin.  Add the first measure of peccorino.  Stir until well combined and a soft dough forms (the dough should not be sticky).  Turn dough onto a lightly floured surface and lightly knead.  Roll the dough into 4 30cm-long rolls and cut each roll into 5cm pieces.

Bring a saucepan of salted water to the boil over high heat.  Add a quarter of the gnocchi and cook for two minutes until they float to the top.  Cook for a further 2 minutes.  Remove them with a slotted spoon and transfer to a large bowl.  Cover to keep warm.  Cook the remaining batches of gnocchi.

Meanwhile, to make sage butter, heat the butter in a saucepan over medium heat until sizzling.  Add the sage leaves and cook for 2 minutes until the butter turns golden.  Put the gnocchi in serving bowls.  Spoon over the sage butter and season with salt and pepper.  Sprinkle with the second measure of peccorino and serve.

A plum in my mouth!

Beans anyone?

As usual at this time of the year life is busy – another bull calf born on Wednesday, and then the rains came!  This was wonderful news for the entire farm – everything got a decent watering and the tanks are full again.  Many of our orchard trees were under severe stress – even some of the feijoa trees were turning up their toes a little.   Now, everything in the garden is lovely.  There are beans, courgettes, cucumbers, scaloppini, silver beet, spinach, lettuces, radishes, Japanese turnips, sweet corn, peas, radicchio, basil, lettuces, potatoes and the first of the Black Doris plums.  Since we have worked outside much of the day, an easy dessert is called for tonight, to serve after our own fillet steak, our own potatoes, beans, sweet corn (dripping with butter) and spinach.

Look what I laid

Baked plums in wine

Put 1kg of whole plums in an ovenproof dish in a single layer, with ¼ cup of water and ¼ cup of wine.  Red wine is good, a fortified wine is better.  Sprinkle the plums with about ¼ of sugar.  Bake in the oven for an hour at 150 degrees C.  If the plums are large, you may need to halve and then stone them. 

Serve with cream, yogurt, custard, ice cream, crème fraiche or be totally decadent and serve them for breakfast with muesli.