Whole Wheat Pumpkin Gnocchi

I love gnocchi.  Love.  It.

I know - stuffing starchy carbs into refined white flour pockets then dumping a creamy and probably calorie laden sauce all over it does not make for the healthiest dinner option.  But Maggiano's makes the best gnocchi.  Sometimes a girl's gotta have what a girl's gotta have.

A few weeks ago I found this recipe on How Sweet It Is for what seemed like a slightly healithified version of gnocchi.  We all know how I like to healthify.

And I love pumpkin.  And I had one can left from my October-November cooking exploits.  A match made in heaven.  Or so I thought.

Recipe:
1 3/4 cups whole wheat flour
1/4 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice (or nutmeg) - I used nutmeg
1 1/4 cups canned pumpkin

Add ingredients together and mix together to form a dough.  If it is too sticky (and it will get sticky!), add more flour to the mix.

(Good thing Alex was home when I made these; I couldn't get near my camera like this!)

Roll dough into five approximately equal dough strips and cut gnocchi into desired size.

Boil a large pot of water and salt liberally.  This is your only chance to season the gnocchi.  Boil gnocchi in small batches until it floats.  About 3 minutes.  Drain.  Serve with a bit of butter (I used olive oil) and grated parmesan cheese.

Verdict:
I think you need to be Italian to make something like gnocchi.  Or at least learn how from an ancient, white-haired Italian grandmother.  I'm not.  And I didn't.

It wasn't a compete disaster.  Alex actually liked it more than I did and had seconds.  But I had pretty high expectations given my love for gnocchi.  It was pretty bland.  And frustrating because, although the ingredient list was simple enough, I needed more counter space and a third arm for all that dough rolling and cutting and small batch cooking.

I'm not saying I would never again try to make gnocchi.  But I think some expert help and/or a second set of hands and opinion would be good.  And a bigger kitchen.

I do know this.  This weekend Alex's hospital's holiday party is at Maggiano's.  And my fingers are crossed for some gnocchi.  Starchy potatoes, white flour, creamy calorie laden sauce and all.