The other night, I was hunting for a dinner I hadn’t made before when I stumbled upon a recipe for a Gnocchi and Spinach Bake. And I thought to myself: gnocchi-dokey, you’ve got this. Because why use those two Olive Garden gift cards we got for Christmas when I could make Olive Garden jealous instead? Sorry, Olive Garden—olive-goo but not tonight.
I mean, who needs to be waited on when you can wait in line at the grocery store and wait the inestimable time it takes to bake a Gnocchi and Spinach Bake? Yes, inestimable. Fancy words are a requisite when you’re making fancy Italian food. And I’m talking Friuli-Venezia Giulia fancy—the kind of fancy where your pasta might have a trust fund.
To set the mood, I queued up my romantic cooking playlist. Things really started to simmer when Simply Red’s “If You Don’t Gnocchi by Now” came on. I stirred the sauce with feeling.
Now, I only had frozen spinach, so I did what any culinary optimist would do—I blanched it. What emerged from the pot, however, was Swamp Thing, who promptly lectured me about proper recycling practices and snapped my stirring spoon in half for being made of unsustainable wood. That’s the last time I mess with frozen spinach—it has strong opinions.
For the cream sauce, I used cashew milk. It turned out so rich I’m pretty sure it came from a cash cow rather than a cashew cow. Honestly, it was less of a béchamel and more of a bank transfer. I topped the whole thing with parmesan, almond slivers, and possibly a few splinters from the fallen wooden spoon. RIP, Stir McStickface.
I served a Caesar salad to start—thankfully appropriate now that it’s April and not the Ides of March. One assassination (of my spoon) per dinner is quite enough.
In the end, the bake was creamy, the salad was crisp, and Swamp Thing even stayed for dessert. He brought tiramisu, apologized for the spoon, and gave me a reusable bamboo spatula as a peace offering. Honestly? We gnocchi’d it out of the park. And as Simply Red would say—if you don’t gnocchi by now, you will never, never, never gnocchi… oooohhh.