February 11th: butternut squash gnocchi, play dough

This is the second time I've cooked this meal, and the third time I've eaten it. My friend Janice made this for us at our Christmas cookie exchange in December and it was good and easy, so I made it for us awhile back. At that time, Olivia didn't like it, and Sadie ate a goodly portion. Tonight, Olivia ate a bit more than last time, and Sadie hardly ate a bite. Who knows?

This one comes from Michael Smith; I found a copy online that called for making your own gnocchi, but I used store-bought, the fresh kind.

Sadie Sous-Chef

Goat Cheese Gnocchi with Sage Butternut Squash Sauce


50 ml (1/4 cup) unsalted butter
2 onions, minced
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 medium butternut squash, peeled, seeded and cut in 1-cm (1/2-inch) cubes
250 ml (1 cup) water
2 ml (1/2 tsp) salt
Lots of freshly ground pepper
Leaves from 1 bunch fresh sage, thinly sliced (or 1 tbsp/15 ml dried sage)
1 pkg prepared fresh gnocchi, 500 g (1 lb)soft goat cheese, to taste
toasted nuts, such as pecans (optional)


In a large skillet, melt butter over medium-high heat. Add onions and garlic; sauté until textures soften and flavours brighten, 5 minutes or so. Toss in butternut squash, water, salt and pepper. Gently stir together, combining flavours. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to a slow, steady simmer, cover tightly and continue cooking, stirring occasionally, until squash is soft and delicious, another 15 minutes or so. Mash sauce lightly with a potato masher, but don’t turn it into a paste.

Meanwhile, cook gnocchi according to package directions, timing it to be ready when the sauce is (good luck!). As soon as sauce and gnocchi are ready, add sage and gnocchi to sauce and stir, stir, stir.

Serve topped with goat cheese and nuts, to taste.

Makes 4 servings.

The only drawback to this meal is that it is heavy; I felt a little ill after eating a probably slightly larger portion than required. Likely should have made a salad on the side.


Alas, I had to make play dough for school. Remember last year? Beautiful sky blue play dough? This year it looks like I'm sending a human liver to school. Olivia and I discussed orange, but oopsy, we ran out of yellow food colouring early on, so I used up all the red, thinking maybe it would end up an orangey-pink after being mixed with all the white flour and salt. Nope. Liver red. Yum yum.

March 16th: play dough

Olivia is in school. So old. Junior Kindergarten. School is so different now from my childhood: no desks, no chalkboard. The class is a mix between daycare and school and the room is set up into "centres" based around different activities. One of the requirements for the parents of the 26 students in her class, is that each one has to take a turn making play dough for the class. My turn came up the week of March 18th. I had no idea play dough is so easy to make! This homemade recipe would be entirely safe for children (cough Sadie cough) to put in their mouths, because it is made with a few real food ingredients, plus a whole lot of food colouring (not so good). Olivia and I tasted it just to see what it was like. HOLY GROSS! I spit it back out, it was that bad. Salty salty salty. But still, safe.


Play Dough

2 cups flour
1 cup salt
4 tsp cream of tartar
2 tbsp oil
2 cups water
food colouring

Mix together dry ingredients in large saucepan. Add the oil and mix to combine.

In measuring cup, combine food colouring and water. Stir into dry ingredients.

Cook on low heat for 3-5 minutes, stirring, until it thickens to play dough consistency.

Remove from heat onto floured board and knead.

Store in a covered container or ziplock bag.

Makes one big ball of play dough.


Grace requested I make play dough with sparkles in it. I decided not to, because, having never made it before, I didn't want to mess with the recipe the first time. I think sparkles would work though: I would add them to the water mixture. This would, however, make it inadvisable to eat the play dough.

Mix dry ingredients in large pot.

Mix food colouring with water.
I had no idea how much food colouring to use so I just kept squirting
until the water was so dark blue it was almost black.

Turns out lots of food colouring is good,
because it really lightens up once all the ingredients are mixed together.
Cook on stovetop. This part gets really tiring for the arm.

It was completely unintentional that Olivia's dress and the play dough matched.
Olivia is dressed like it is 30° outside, not the middle of the coldest, snowiest March since the year she was born.