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butternut squash & gnocci served with garlic bread cropped

Gnocci & Butternut Squash Traybake

roast butternut squash and garlic, use half to make the sauce, and half for the sauce. Add in ready to panfry gnocci and roast on with the squash, & other ingredients, then add the sauce and serve.
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 35 minutes
Course Main Course
Cuisine American, Vegan, New cuisine, Italian fusion
Servings 6 servings

Equipment

  • 1 large pyrex tray
  • 1 medium size pyrex tray

Ingredients
  

The basic tray bake starting ingredients

  • 1 kg butternut squast can use frozen if you wish.
  • 40 g garlic cloves use less if you're not keen on it
  • 1 teasp ground black pepper
  • 40 g cold pressed olive oil but use what you need

extras for making the sauce from the cooked butternut squash.

  • 1 tbsp low salt natex (yeast extract) `
  • 150 g vegan cream cheese sainsbury's or waitrose do a good one
  • 75 g vegan parmesan violife or nurrish is good
  • 2 heap tbsps yeast flakes
  • 1 whole lemon - juice and zest of it zest it first though as you can't do it after!
  • 150 g soya or oat milk to thin the sauce can use water... add extra if necessary

Additions to the tray bake after initial cook off.

  • 900 g gnocci if often comes in 450g packs so two - but just use 2 whole packs if it comes in 500g
  • 200 g baby plum tomatoes halved
  • 35 g sundried tomatoes optional
  • 35 g capers optional

Final topping for the tray bake

  • 20 g fresh sage one bag - use 10g if you only have dried sage
  • 3 tsps chilli flakes rounded
  • 25 g olive oil extra virgin
  • 25 g vegan parmesan optional

Instructions
 

  • pre-heat the oven to 200°C Fan then chop and cube the butternut squash into 1.5cm pieces or so.
    chopping the butternut squash`
  • Tip the butternut squash into a large pyrex baking tray adding the unpeeled garlic at the same time.
    butternut squash & garlic in tray
  • drizzle with the olive oil around 30 to 40g and then toss well to cover all the cubes with a thin layer of the oil.
    butternut squash & garlic in tray
  • place in the oven for 30 minutes until the cubes are tender
    butternut squash soft & partially roasted
  • remove half the cubes and pick out the roasted garlic.
    pick out the roasted garlic
  • Add in the gnocci, halved tomatoes, sundried tomatoes, & capers
    adding the capers & tomatoes
  • and give it a good stir to distribute them well and coat the gnocci in the remaining olive oil
  • bake for a further 20 minutes - giving it another stir round after 10 minutes - if you remember. I find having several kitchen timers is useful for this.......
    butternut squash roasted 2
  • put the cubes in a food processor and squeeze in the garlic cloves from direct from the skins.
  • Add in the yeast extract, the lemon juice and zest, the cream cheese, the grated vegan parmesan, black pepper, nutritional yeast,
    the butter nut squash plus ingredients in the blender
  • blend well until you have a fairly sloppy sauce, add extra water or soy/oat milk to get the desired consistency.
    the butternut squash sauce
  • While the gnocci is cooking, put a 3 tablespoons or so of olive oil in a shallow pan on a medium heat and toast the separated sage leaves
    sage leaves ready to saute
  • cook until the crisp up to a dark green. Remove quickly with a slotted spoon or spatula and place on kitchen towel.
    crisped sage leaves on kitchen towel
  • Add the chilli flakes to the still hot oil stir for a minute or so, until the colour has gone into the oil, and then turn the heat off.
    chilli flakes lightly sauteed in oil
  • transfer the contents of the blender/processor to a large jug or bowl so that you can reheat it to serve.
  • just before the 20 minutes for the gnocci is up, give the sauce a couple of minutes on half-power in the microwave to get it back up to around 80°C - a digital thermometer is very useful for this....... begin pouring......
    pouring on the butternut sauce
  • with the tray out of the oven, finish pouring all the hot sauce over the gnocci and mix it all together.
    fully poured and mixed sauce
  • Over the top, , arrange the crispy sage leaves, t
    adding the cripsed sage leaves
  • then after a good stir, spoon on enough of the chilli flakes and chilli infused oil and sprinkle some parmesan as well if you like.
    adding the chilli in oil
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