My husband is by far the best cook that I know. I love having friends and family over for dinner because watching them in complete awe when they see how great of a cook Brian is, is amazing. This works out quite well for me as I am terrible in the kitchen- like burn toast, light eggs on fire bad. I can bake pretty well but for some reason when I try to cook, it always blows up in my face- literally!! Brian has a few specialities that he loves making, and he’s constantly coming up with new things that he’ll make so I thought that every few posts, I’ll post one of his recipes.
For us lately, meals have looked quite a bit different. Max has some sort of allergy that we have not been able to totally figure out. For a while I was doing an elimination diet which I will explain in a future post, but lately I’ve been eating things that are more whole foods, so things that don’t have any added ingredients are and the most basic ingredients that they can be. This has left us feeling pretty boring with our food choices. Brian usually will make a sandwich or something like that for himself and I’ll have chicken and sweet potatoes for dinner- the two things we know Max doesn’t react to. I’ve given up pretty much everything- dairy, soy, corn, wheat. Soy has proven to be the hardest because it seems to be in everything!
So when Brian said that he wanted to do something special for Valentine’s Day, I was really excited! He decided to make an allergy friendly version of sweet potato gnocchi and broccoli rabe, and I’m so excited to share! One in ten women that breast feed end up having to go dairy free, and of that ten percent a lot of them also have to give up soy or other allergens as well. This recipe should be good for all of the top allergens, so hopefully it helps someone that is feeling stuck in a rut of boring allergy friendly foods!
Allergy Friendly Sweet Potato Gnocchi & Broccoli Rabe
Prep Time: 30 Minutes
Cook Time: 10 Minutes
Total Time: 40 Minutes
Yield: 4 Servings
Description: Dairy, soy, gluten and corn free
sweet potato gnocchi & broccoli rabe
Ingredients:
Gnocchi
Three medium size sweet potatoes
2 cups of oat flour (or any flour of your choice)
1 tablespoon nutritional yeast
2 eggs
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
Broccoli Rabe
1 bunch of broccoli rabe
1 shallot
3 cloves of garlic (or more if you prefer!)
3 tablespoons olive oil
Instructions
1.) Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil. Stick your sweet potatoes with a fork a few times each, and then place them on the baking sheet. Bake for 40-50 minutes at 350. (You can also wrap them in saran wrap and microwave them for 8-10 minutes, or until soft).
2.) Scoop the inside of the sweet potatoes into a medium sized bowl. You can toss the skins. Add in the eggs, and then stir in the flour, nutritional yeast, garlic powder, salt and pepper. Mix the ingredients together until dough is consistent. The dough will be a little loose, but that’s normal. Place the bowl with the dough in the refrigerator for about an hour or until cool. Just a note for the flour- we’ve used chickpea flour as well, but it was pretty overpowering. The oat flour was pretty good though!
3.) While the dough cools, start on your broccoli rabe. Fill a large pot two-thirds of the way with water and bring to a boil. Add a few dashes of salt to the water. While the water heats up, rinse your broccoli rabe and cut the bottom 1/2 inch of stems off. Place your broccoli rabe in your boiling pot, boil for five minutes. Drain pot and broccoli rabe, immediately rinsing your broccoli rabe with cold water.
4.) After broccoli rabe has cooled, use paper towels to pat the moisture out of the broccoli rabe. We used a cooking sheet with paper towels on the bottom and patted them with the top. You don’t have to do this part, but Brian said this is what he thinks that this makes the broccoli rabe hold together better. Set broccoli rabe aside to start on your gnocchi again.
5.) Spread flour over a clean countertop. Put gnocchi dough onto floured countertop adding flour until you form into a dough ball. Start to take off about a handful of dough at a time, and roll out on floured countertop into a half inch rope.
6.) Cut the rope in approximately one inch long sections. Make sure to flour the countertop enough so that gnocchi pillows don’t stick to each other. Do this until you’ve made the entire batch into little gnocchi. Place on a plate, do not layer.
7.) Bring a large pot of water (you can use the same pot from the broccoli rabe!) three quarters of the way full to a boil. Drop gnocchi in one at a time, do not crowd the pot. You will need to do multiple batches, we ended up doing four batches. Boil gnocchi for two to three minutes and remove when they begin to float. Place on a plate and set to the side.
8. )Dice your shallot and mince the garlic. We used a LOT of garlic, so feel free to use as much as you would like, Brian said that an appropriate amount would probably about three cloves, he used about seven (No, I am not kidding, added the picture for proof!)
9.) Heat olive oil in a large pan on medium heat. Add garlic and shallots, stirring for two minutes or until lightly browned and aromatic.
10.) Add in cooked gnocchi, stir occasionally for three minutes until lightly browned all over. Add the broccoli rabe and toss. Cook for three minutes and serve immediately!
Despite not cooking, I helped Brian with this recipe and it didn’t seem too hard, so I would definitely say this recipe is beginner friendly (but let’s be real- by help I mean that I took the gnocchi out of the boiling pot of water and watched while he did everything else to not burn the house down -haha) Please leave a comment below if you try this, and let me know if you’re interested in seeing more recipes from Brian or allergy friendly recipes!
mamabearandbabycakes.com 