One cup of ricotta cheese has around 428 calories and around 31.93 g fat

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One cup of potatoes is nearly fat free but has around 280 calories.

Potato Salad

One cup of kabocha squash is only 40 calories a cup and is fat free.

Gnocchi are little dumpling that are most often made from potato or cheese or a combination of both.

Ricotta Gnocchi (That I made, recipe on this site)

I decided I’d make Kabocha Squash Gnocchi similar to the way I make ricotta gnocchi but I will go even another step healthy and use 1/2 spelt flour to half all-purpose flour.

The recipe is forking simple.

1 cup of cooked kabocha squash blended or mashed well. (from whole squash you cook…you need the rest of squash for sauce)

1/2 cup spelt flour (slightly scant)

1/2 cup all-purpose flour (slightly scant)

1 egg (beaten)

about 1 teaspoon kosher salt

pinch saffron

Put on a pot of water to boil with a tablespoon or so of kosher salt. Combine ingredients and insert in a pastry bag with an open end. Squeeze out mixture from bag into the boiling water and break the gnocchi off with your finger.

When the gnocchi float to the top let them cook a few minutes and then remove them with a slotted spoon and place in a bowl and drizzle lightly with extra virgin olive oil to prevent sticking.

When I went to forking photo my water was a little too hot and almost forking boiled over but I turned it down in time.

I let my water reduce a little and I added some vegetable base to the water and a pinch of saffron. Next I added the rest of the pureed kabocha squash to the liquid to thicken it a little. I also added one shredded carrot.

This soup-like sauce is good and does have a natural creamy texture.  I thought I’d make it more interesting with other flavors and textures. The additions were, apple, onion, garlic, almonds and roasted sweet tomatoes.

If you want a richer “Weekend” version add about 2 Tablespoons of butter and a splash of cream. You might want to reduce slightly further.

Set oven to 350 roast.

I roasted up everything on a slightly oiled pan being careful not to burn the almonds pushing the onions and apples over them.

1/4 cup lightly crushed almonds.

One apple small chopped.

About 1/4 sweet onion small chopped,

One garlic clove minced.

Fresh ground sea salt, fresh ground black pepper and I

lightly sprayed them all on one pan with extra virgin olive oil.

I took the pan out in 14 minutes.

Added this mixture to my soup like sauce and poured some over the gnocchi.

I roasted a few tiny sweet tomatoes. The tomatoes are the perfect accent for this dish and make the flavors pop.

Forking Good!

Spinach Fontina Poppers

These poppers are absolutely FORKING delicious. They are healthier and easier than regular poppers because they lack frying and breading and are mostly healthy fresh vegetables with only a small amount of flavorful cheese and seasonings. They are very flavorful and have the just right textures. You won’t miss the frying one forking bit.

To prepare delicious spinach is key.

For delicious spinach you need regular fresh spinach and not forking baby spinach because baby spinach lacks flavor.

Clean your spinach and rough cut smaller including a most of the stems. For each large bunch of spinach you need about half an onion sliced very thin and add your spinach and onion to vegetable stock and bring to boil and let simmer a few minutes.

Drain.

Add a big splash or two of extra virgin olive oil, some fresh ground sea salt, fresh ground black pepper and between 1/2-1 clove of garlic smashed or grounded up in to your spinach mixture.

Wash up some sweet crispy mini bell peppers and cut in half. Remove core and seeds if you forking see any.

Stuff with some spinach mixture and a small chunk of fontina cheese.

Very lightly sprinkle the tops of the stuffed poppers with fresh ground sea salt, fresh ground black pepper, oregano, basil, micro pinch of rosemary, micro pinch of granulated garlic.

Place on lightly oiled baking pan and roast in a 400 degree oven till just melted. (only a few minutes) Doesn’t forking take long.

These are forking absolutely delicious!

Your Forking Welcome!

Forking Good

Black Beluga Lentils with Black Garlic, Kumatoes and Baby Bells

The Lentils come out creamy and well seasoned because you prepare them Thomas Keller Style. Cooked with onion, thyme, carrot, s&p and the trick is a little vinegar for tenderness and infusing the flavor. I added balsamic after the lentils were cooked. They were delicious just like that but I added Kumatoes that are

better than your average forking store tomato and roasted them with sweet black garlic. The sweet black garlic doesn’t taste like garlic it’s more of a smokey prune kind of taste.

I also roasted up some super sweet baby bell peppers and added some fresh chopped scallions.

I made a big batch of lentils and froze some, left some plain in the fridge for adding to salads and only needed a heaping cup of them cooked for this recipe.

Basic almost (Thomas Keller Style Way) of doing lentils

For about 2 lbs of lentils.

I added them to my sauce pan and added enough water to cover them well.

about 1 teaspoon kosher salt

about 1/2 teaspoon pepper ( I used Aleppo this time)

about 1 teaspoon dried thyme (you should use fresh sprig but I didn’t have one)

one carrot or a parsnip (to be tossed out after cooking because it’s flavorless now)

1/2 large red onion or a forking leek if you prefer (to be forking tossed out after cooking)

Bring to boil and reduce to simmer and cover for about 15 minutes or until tender. Mine soaked up all the water and were perfect so I didn’t drain. Discard onion and carrot. Add two big splashes of balsamic vinegar and set a side and let cool.

Now roast up your chopped 5 or 6 kumatoes or good tomatoes and place on pan with your pealed 2-3 heads of black garlic and drizzle with extra virgin olive oil. Set your oven to 375 degrees for roasting.

Get about 9 baby bell peppers.

Chop them into rings and place on baking pan, drizzle with extra virgin olive oil and place in oven with your tomatoes.

The peppers will take around 25 minutes and the kumatoes with black garlic will take about 35 minutes.

Now with a spoon mixed up the roasted tomatoes with black garlic mixing the garlic up into the mixture.

Season both pans with fresh ground sea salt and fresh black pepper.

Add your kumato/black garlic mixture to a heaping cup of prepared black beluga lentils.

Top with the roasted baby bells and fresh cut scallions.

Forking Good

Nothing is forking  easier to make than home made mascarpone cheese.

All you need is-

cream, it should be heavy cream but you can do it with whipping cream too or a combination of the two. The store was giving away these creams so I did a combination of 2 pints heavy cream and 1 pint whipping cream. Whipping cream has about 7% less fat than heavy cream so it’s not a very big difference. The creams with the least amount of stabilizers will produce the highest quality cheese. For that reason you can never use the less expensive manufacturing cream. It has way to much forking stabilizers in it and can only be used for sauces. The only other ingredients I used where juice from one lemon and about a teaspoon of kosher salt.

You need to heat the cream and salt in a sauce pan and bring it slowly to a slow boil and let it go a few minutes. Then slowly add the fresh squeezed lemon juice, you might not need it all depending on how big or forking juicy your lemon is. You need the cream to thicken and to coat your spoon.

Then you pour into a paper towel lined colander.

Let drain over night.

Peal away the paper towel.

Now you have home made mascarpone cheese!

It was WHEY easier than you thought! Wasn’t it?

2 pints heavy cream

1 pint whipping cream

juice of one lemon (maybe less)

about a teaspoon of kosher salt

makes about 4 cups of mascarpone

Forking Good!