In my last two weeks of pregnancy I really, really wanted cinnamon rolls. Turns out cinnamon rolls are one of those things that are everywhere when you aren’t looking for them, and then mysteriously disappear as soon as you want them/are super gigantic and can’t travel very far. I ended up getting some from the grocery store (the Mariano’s ones were way better than the Whole Foods ones), and an un-iced one from the bakery down the street (why would you have an un-iced cinnamon roll?!) These were not satisfying, so the last thing I baked before baby came was those awesome vegan pumpkin cinnamon rolls that I always make when I want cinnamon rolls.
They were packed with butter because I’m not actually vegan. I should’ve made cream cheese frosting for them instead of the vegan simple white icing (powdered sugar + milk + vanilla).
Anyways, almost every time I make those cinnamon rolls I end up making pumpkin gnocchi, because they don’t use an entire can of pumpkin. They leave just enough leftover pumpkin to make a recipe of gnocchi. Pumpkin gnocchi = way easier/faster than potato, though probably the same if you start from raw pumpkin. It’s taken me three hours to make potato gnocchi, while pumpkin come together in about half an hour if you don’t bother to do the dimpling (which I don’t because I’m lazy).
So few ingredients! Flour, pumpkin, eggs, salt, pepper, nutmeg. Also, in our defense I made the gnocchi the day after the cinnamon rolls. So that’s why we’ve already eaten four of them.
The key to gnocchi is to not mix it too much- a very, very light touch is needed, or else the dumplings get gluey/chewy instead of pillowy. Start your pot of water boiling now. Once your ingredients are barely mixed, you need to lightly roll the dough into four ropes (about half an inch in diameter) and cut the dumplings with a fork.
I cut one rope at a time, then toss that batch of gnocchi into the pot. It takes about the same amount of time to cut a rope as it does for one batch to cook. The gnocchi are done when they rise to the top of the water. Use a slotted spoon to pick them up.

I wonder if the author of Tortilla Curtain makes pasta a lot- you know, b/c he’s Boyle all the time.
Leave them in a colander and toss them with a little olive oil so they don’t stick to each other.
I have a windowsill herb garden so I threw tons of sage leaves into a most of a stick of butter.
Sage brown butter, if you haven’t had it before, is amazing. Just put butter into a pan until it sizzles, then stops sizzling (that’s the browning part), and then put in a ton of sage leaves. Recipes on the internet call for eight leaves, which is crazy. Put in as many as you can. The crispy sage leaves are delicious! And they impart such a rich flavor to the butter.
Once the sauce is done, throw the gnocchi in the pan, toss, and eat with some grated parmesan on top.
Pumpkin gnocchi with sage brown butter sauce
Gnocchi recipe is unadapted from The Skinny Fork, so I won’t write it here.
Sauce:
Melt 6-8 TB of butter in a pan, until it sizzles, foams, and subsides. Butter will be nut brown. Add 8-20 sage leaves and let them fry for a few minutes. Don’t let them burn! Eat with anything.
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