Homemade Parmesan Gnocchi with Braised Short Rib Ragu

Having a food blog, I think I tend to keep trying different things – not only for myself but it would be a pretty boring food blog if I ate oatmeal every day.  So I was happy to bring back . . . Breakfast Nachos!

This time the base of my nachos was a drained can of pinto beans mixed with a 4 oz. can of green chiles.  I cooked those on the stove for about 10 minutes, and used my potato masher to mash it up.  I ended up using 1/2 a cup of the mixture between my 10 nacho chips.

Then I just microwaved 1/2 a cup of egg beaters on a small plate, and cut it up into 10 pies.

Then I added 3/4 an of cheese between the, popped them under the broiler for a few minutes and topped them with fresh cilantro – this whole plate is only 10 Points Plus and kept me full four hours. 😀

I walked again at lunch, but what started out as a chilly sunny day, turned out to be a chilly overcast afternoon – I sucked it up and walked 50 minutes.

My lunch was not on the menu, but I had leftover tuna steak, so I made tuna steak tacos – lunch comes in at 9 PointsPlus.

My commute home last night was horrible, it was only slightly raining, but it took me nearly an hour to get home.  Doesn’t everyone make homemade gnocchi on a week night?  Luckily I had my trusty assistant Hannah who already had my potatoes cooking and the rest of the ingredients in place.  😀

Homemade Potato Gnocchi

• 6 servings (20 gnocchi per serving) = 6 Points Plus

Ingredients:

• 1 pound starchy potatoes (I used russett)
• 1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
• 1 egg
• 1.5 cups flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper

Cook the potatoes in their skin in water in a large stock pot.  When a knife goes through, they are done, about 15 minutes.  I put them into an ice bath for a couple minutes so I could handle them.  Peel off the skin and put in a bowl.  Add salt, pepper, egg, parmesan cheese.  Then mix in flour and put on your counter and knead like you would any dough.  I did add about 1 tablespoon of olive oil to get it to roll out nicely.

Roll out into ropes, cut each rope into 1 inch pieces and put on a lightly floured cookie sheet.  Boil water – don’t overcrowd the water – cook for 2 minutes, they will float to the top when done.

I made Kevin’s Braised Short Rib Ragu over the weekend – this was an amazing dish!  Since I made the ragu over the weekend, the flavor got deeper and paired with the light and fluffy gnocchi – pure comfort food in a dish – my dinner was 10 PointsPlus.

I reduced the amount of short ribs to save on calories, but realized even with 1.5 pounds of ribs, there really isn’t a whole lot of meat – maybe 4 ounces in total?

After it cooked down, I picked off all the mean, strained some of the fat before continuing.  This is a very rich sauce – my guess is about 5 points per 1/2 cup.