gnocchi with butternut squash and kale

I bought a butternut squash at the store last week, and I really didn’t know what to do with it. My inspiration came when I realized we had a LOT of kale, and a quick google search turned up a recipe on the Food Network.

This is my modified, veganized version.

(somehow my picture got lost…..)

Gnocchi with butternut squash and kale

Makes 4-6 servings.

Ingredients

• 1 medium butternut squash, cubed into bite size pieces
• 3-5 cloves garlic, sliced
• 1-2 tbs sage, chopped
• 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes, or to taste
• 2 tbs vegan butter
• 1 bunch kale, rough chopped
• 2 – 2.5 cups water or vegetable broth/stock
• 1 package vegan gnocchi (some have eggs, so if you are vegan, make sure you check!)
• Parma (vegan parmesan) or nutritional yeast, to taste
• salt to taste

Directions

• Melt 1 tbs butter in large skillet over medium heat. Add butternut squash and cook for 8 minutes or until slightly tender (but not fully cooked, because it will be mush at the end if you cook it too much now)
• Add the sage, garlic and red pepper flakes, cook another 1-2 minutes. Add more vegan butter or olive oil if your pan starts to get dry
• Add 1 to 1.5 cups water, bring to simmer
• Add kale and cook 1-2 minutes until kale is slightly wilted
• Preheat the broiler on your oven
• Add gnocchi, cover and simmer 5 minutes or until gnocchi are tender (at this point, I moved everything to a large stock pot because my skillet wasn’t big enough. I also added an extra cup of water because everything was very dry)
• Add Parma to taste, and last tbs of vegan butter (if you want)
• Add salt and more red pepper to taste
• Place under the broiler for 3-5 minutes

Notes:  If I were going to make this again, I would modify the instructions quite a bit. I would cook the gnocchi separately in boiling water. It was good, but trying to do it all in one skillet was hard because I had to guess when to move on to the next step and I felt it was all a little mushy in the end. So, cook the squash pretty much all the way, add all the spices and garlic, etc, the kale, and then combine with the gnocchi at the end before broiling. Another interesting thing to try would be using cannellini beans instead of gnocchi.