Kale and squash and gnocchi...oh my!

I recently decided to re-sign up for a local food co-op (Farmer Tom's CSA) on a quest to eat more greens and fruit on a daily basis. This past Friday, I picked up my half-bushel of local and organic veggies and a 'fruit surprise' in two very heavy boxes. In case you're wondering, a half bushel of vegetables is a spectacularly large amount of veggies, especially considering that you do not pick which vegetables show up in your box. I received a beautiful head of lettuce, some potatoes, a giant Covington yam, tomatoes, broccoli, a yellow squash, green onions, green peppers, some kind of radicchio, an eggplant (yech!), some carrots and a huge bunch of fancy-looking, frilly purplish kale - and I haven't even started on the fruit surprise yet!

You must be wondering what I will be doing with this random assortment of vegetables. Obviously, a salad: lettuce, tomatoes, green pepper, broccoli and carrots all add up to a perfect salad. Yay! Down a couple of veggies! Salad every night for a week!

Ok. On to the more unusual veggies. I began scouring the internet for a recipe that uses frilly purplish kale (aka red bor kale) and lo and behold, I found a recipe that required not just kale, but also squash...kind of. The recipe, Gnocchi with Kale and Squash, called for red bor kale and butternut squash. I don't have a butternut squash - eh, small detail - I can just use the yellow squash. Then, I decided that this recipe would be even better with more vegetables...because I have soooo many! I used kale, yellow squash, potatoes, a tomato and green onions. And since D. prefers to have non-vegetarian meals, I also added ground lamb. And changed the cheese. And modified the spices. It was so very, very good.

Gnocchi with Red Bor Kale, Yellow Squash and Lamb

Ingredients:
4 tbs unsalted butter
1 yellow squash, sliced into pieces
3 cloves garlic
1 tbsp oregano
~ 1/4 - 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 - 2 c. chicken broth
1 bunch red bor kale, stemmed and chopped or shredded
1 package potato gnocchi
1 tomato, diced
3 green onions, sliced green parts
2 red potatoes, diced
1 lb ground lamb
1 package fancy shredded cheddar (or preferred flavor) cheese
crumbled goat cheese for sprinkling

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees and spray a 9x13 casserole dish with cooking spray. Melt butter in a large skillet and add the squash. Cook until soft and slightly golden (about 8-10 minutes). Add garlic, oregano, red pepper flakes and salt and cook for about 2 minutes. At the same time, cook the ground lamb and drain off grease after fully cooked.

Add chicken broth to the skillet. When it starts to simmer, stir in the kale and the potatoes and cook until the kale starts to wilt, about 3 minutes. Add the gnocchi, stir, cover and cook until the gnocchi are slightly tender, about 5 minutes. Uncover and add several handfuls of the shredded cheese, the tomatoes, green onions and the lamb. Stir to combine. Pour the mixture into the casserole dish, sprinkle more of the shredded cheese on top and bake for 10 minutes. Remove and serve, sprinkling individual portions with goat cheese as preferred.  

It turned out to be a tasty and colorful dinner!