Sweet Potato Gnocchi and My Greatest "Cheese" Sauce EVER!!

“What are you making?”

“Sweet potato…” As I was answering this (usually) simple question on Monday night, I realized that I didn’t know how to pronounce gnocchi.  As a cook, I felt like I should really know how to.  So, if you were wondering too, dictionary.com says “nok-ee”/”noh-kee” but when I hit the little speaker button to hear it pronounced it’s more like “nah-kee”.

Anywho… I made sweet potato gnocchi.  I’ve never made regular potato gnocchi before and have only eaten one once, but it was good.  I decided, though, that since I enjoy sweet potatoes better then regular and they’re supposed to be healthier, I’d go ahead and give it a try.  So, I went on a search for a recipe and found one on foodnetwork.com, then went ahead and adjusted it to make it vegan and more to my liking.  It’s pretty simple:

1 large sweet potato

2 cups whole wheat pastry flour

1 TBSP finely ground flax seeds, plus 3 TBSP water, blended in a blender until frothy and allowed to rest for 30 min – 1 hr

½ tsp ground cinnamon

pinch ground nutmeg (about 2 shakes)

½ tsp sea salt (for cooking water)

1.  At 425°F, bake the sweet potato until tender, about 40-45 min.  When cool enough to handle, peel and mash.

2.  Add flour, flax/water, cinnamon, and nutmeg; mix with hands until well combined.  Shape dough into a ball, wrap in waxed paper or plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 1 hour or up to 1 day.

3.  Bring a large saucepan of water to a boil.

4.  When boiling, add salt.  Using 2 spoons, scoop up about 2 TBSP of dough with one, and scrape off with the other.  Cooking no more then 5-8 at a time, add balls of dough to the water, wait for them to rise to the surface, about 5 min.  Let them cook 1 min longer then scoop out with slotted spoon and transfer to paper towels to drain.  Repeat process until all are cooked.  Serve right away.

This recipe made 16 for me, but I feel like they would have been so much better smaller, more like bite-size.  Next time I make this recipe I will be trying them smaller.

I baked a few sweet potatoes so not to waste the oven time and in case I wanted to make more.

The original recipe that I adapted this from said it would take about 3 minutes for them to rise in the boiling water, but it was around 5 minutes.

Haha… and I thought I had copied things down wrong when I was making the dough and put the sea salt, which was intended for the water, in.  Oops.  I just skipped putting salt in the water and they came out tasting good.

It was closer to an hour that I allowed the ground flax to sit after blending it with the water, and it does take on an eggy consistency and worked great as a binder.

I let the dough sit for about 24 hours (I was too hungry after making the dough to wait the hour to cook them so I cooked them Tuesday night).  I stored leftovers in the refrigerator and they reheat fine in the microwave.

Enough about the gnocchi itself.  After I cooked it up, I thought, what am I going to put on it?  I know regular potato gnocchi can be served with tomato sauce, but with sweet potato I thought, eh, no… and I have to stay away from tomato anyway so what to do…

I ended up making this amazing “cheese” sauce and am so glad that I wrote down what I put in the pan as I was throwing it together.  Mmmm, so good.  If I could, I would marry this sauce!  I will be using it now whenever I need a “cheese” sauce.  (I can’t wait to make some mac and cheese with it!)

So, what did I put in, you may ask.  Hmm…. Alright, yeah, I’ll share it with you ;)

In a small saucepan, place ¼ cup rice milk, ½ cup Daiya mozzarella cheese, and a small chunk of Follow Your Heart cheddar.  Place on low to medium-low heat and heat until cheeses melt, whisking occasionally to prevent sticking.  As it heats, add a pinch of nutmeg and about 1 teaspoon cilantro base (Goya makes a good one).  Towards the end of melting, take a few fresh basil leaves, chop them up and add to the sauce.  Heat until the sauce reaches the thickness you’d like it to be.

(You can use other brands of vegan cheese, this is what I had on hand.)

Voila!  Simple.  Delicious.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!!