Meyer Lemon Gnocchi and Roasted Garlic-Parmigiano Broccoli

With the Sur La Table gift card that my brother gave me for my birthday, I also received a year's subscription to Food & Wine magazine. I have had too few encounters with gnocchi, but after having the Gnocchi in Gorgonzola sauce from Villa Roma, I couldn't stop thinking of the pillowy, baby-skull soft (as the The Girl Who Ate Everything would say) gnocchi and it just so happened that the March 2008 issue of Food & Wine had Meyer Lemon Gnocchi on its cover.


The Meyer Lemon Gnocchi from the March 2008 issue of Food & Wine was a very labor-intensive recipe. I don't have a potato ricer, so I used a trick from Smitten Kitchen and used a cheese grater to get a fine mash of potatoes. I spent a long time in the kitchen and it was worth it. The sauce was very rich, as it calls for a stick of butter, so taking into consideration the labor and the calories, this is a recipe to be made and eaten in moderation.


This is Roasted Garlic-Parmigiano Broccoli from the November 2007 issue of Food & Wine. Wow, broccoli is probably my favorite vegetable and I didn't think it could be heightened any more than the countless number of ways I have already eaten it, but slathering it in garlic, Parmesan cheese, and butter and then roasting it is absolutely outstanding and pretty quick.


Unfortunately, as I was busy attending to the broccoli and gnocchi, I let the lemon sauce boil and you can see that it separated. Also, the gnocchi were not as tender as Villa Roma's, but I am definitely making progress from my first miserable attempt at making gnocchi. I'm telling you, I really fail at making doughs and I admit that I overworked the gnocchi dough. Gnocchi, one day I will conquer you...