Roasted vegetables accompany this meal, cauliflower, sweet-potato, carrots and yellow peppers, zucchini and mushrooms, onion and garlic - whatever I had on hand. They are tossed with olive oil, pepper, Italian herbs and roasted for a half hour. Inspired by a Sardinian recipe for wild boar called Topini al Cinghiale, I braised a chunk of beef with carrots, celery and onion, added 'Better Than Bullion', Braggs liquid aminos, red wine, and simmered all of it until I had a nice reduction sauce that could be poured over the gnocchi.
Also served with this meal: Stewed tomatoes and corn, and buckwheat groats...a very substantial wintertime meal.One note of caution: Regardless of the variety of sauces used, whether tomato, pesto, chicken alfredo, or a hearty wild boar sauce, it is important to serve the meal right away if the gnocchi are in a sauce. They will soften if left to rest in the oven for a couple of hours - this happened to my 'wild boar' experiment. George called at the last minute, and said he'd be a few hours late for dinner! Fortunately, I reserved most of the gnocchi rather than hold them in the sauce, and they were perfect the next day.
Our weather here has been downright cold, but with brilliant sunshine. I've enjoyed the warmth of the kitchen, and have spent hours reorganizing my cookbooks and reading. I'm currently reading several novels by Sardinian writer Grazia Deledda, who received the Nobel Prize in literature in 1929. Our library has only two of her books, 'La Madre' and 'Reeds in the Wind', and one of them had to be pulled from ancient stacks down in the basement. These novels have been so interesting, with their rich atmospheric settings, the rough and spare Sardinian village life, and the effect of weather in the story telling. I could understand why the recipes fit the landscapes, the weather. I could just imagine the comfort a solitary sheep herder would feel coming home to 'Topini al Cinghiale'.
I've also enjoyed some e-mails from family living through this cold spell. Ruhiyyih mentioned driving to work out in the countryside of eastern Washington. Hoar frost covered everything, and it was like a fairyland. My sister described the deer coming into her meadow, to nibble apples she'd shaken from the tree, and little birds huddled under snowy tree limbs. She put suet and seed out for them, and the deer came by and licked up the crumbs left in the snow.
