Sausage and Gnocchi Marinara

Peak foliage week — the whole hillside in motion, the orange and scarlet and gold all running at once, the kind of week that Vermont sells itself on and that the people who actually live here mostly try to enjoy in between the work that the season requires. The wood needs to be split and stacked, the gutters need to be cleaned, the storm windows need to come out of the shed and go up, the garden needs to be put to bed, the late vegetables need to be brought in, the flannel sheets need to come out of the linen closet. The list of October tasks is long and old and is the same list every year and is, in its consistency, one of the small reassuring rhythms of the year.

I split wood for two hours Saturday morning — the maul biting into the maple rounds, the splits going onto the pile under the back porch, the dog supervising from the doorway. The work is honest in the way that splitting wood is honest, and I came in at eleven with the pleasant tiredness of having done a real thing and stood by the woodstove drinking coffee and looking at the day through the kitchen window. The leaves outside the window were the color of fire. The kettle was on. The dog was at my feet. The morning was complete.

Made a pork roast Sunday — a Boston butt, slow-roasted at three hundred for five hours with onions and apples and a rub of salt and pepper and brown sugar and dry mustard. The pork came out fork-tender, the meat falling apart, the kitchen filling with the deep brown smell of long-roasted pork that is one of the most reliable suppers of the cool season. I shredded the meat with two forks, served it with the pan juices and mashed potatoes and the kale from the garden sauteed with garlic. Three nights of suppers from the roast, with enough left for sandwiches Tuesday and the bone going into the stockpot Wednesday.

The blog post on the pork roast was the kind of basic technical post that does well in October — the recipe, the timing, the variations — and the comments included the usual mix of cooks asking questions and cooks contributing variations. A man in Texas wrote in to defend the proposition that a pork shoulder should be cooked even longer than five hours, which I conceded as a reasonable position but did not adopt. A woman in Pennsylvania wrote in to recommend a beer-based braise version that I have written down and intend to try. The blog continues to be the small ongoing exchange of cooking ideas across the country, and the exchange keeps me honest in a way that cooking only for myself would not.

The pork roast carried us through to Wednesday, the bone went into the stockpot as planned, and by Thursday we needed something that could come together in thirty minutes without much ceremony — something that still had that same deep, savory warmth the week had called for. Sausage and gnocchi marinara is exactly that kind of supper: pork-forward, a little rich, the kind of thing that earns its place on a cool October table without asking much of you after a week of splitting wood and getting the garden put to bed.

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 25 minutes | Total Time: 35 minutes | Servings: 4

Ingredients

1 lb Italian pork sausage (sweet or mild), casings removed
1 lb shelf-stable or refrigerated potato gnocchi
1 (24 oz) jar marinara sauce
1/2 medium yellow onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 tsp crushed red pepper flakes (optional)
1/2 cup whole-milk ricotta cheese
1/2 cup shredded low-moisture mozzarella
2 tbsp olive oil
Salt and black pepper to taste
Fresh basil or flat-leaf parsley, for serving

Instructions

Brown the sausage. Heat olive oil in a large, deep skillet or Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add the sausage and cook, breaking it up with a wooden spoon, until browned and cooked through, about 7–8 minutes. Transfer to a plate and drain all but 1 tablespoon of fat from the pan.
Soften the aromatics. Reduce heat to medium. Add the onion to the skillet and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened, about 4 minutes. Add the garlic and red pepper flakes and cook 1 minute more until fragrant.
Build the sauce. Pour in the marinara sauce and stir to combine with the onion and garlic. Return the sausage to the skillet. Bring to a gentle simmer and cook for 5 minutes to let the flavors come together. Season with salt and pepper.
Cook the gnocchi. Add the gnocchi directly to the simmering sauce, stirring to coat. Cover the skillet and cook over medium-low heat for 5–6 minutes, until the gnocchi are cooked through and have absorbed some of the sauce. Stir once or twice to prevent sticking.
Finish and serve. Drop spoonfuls of ricotta over the top and sprinkle with mozzarella. Cover for 2 minutes until the cheese melts. Serve directly from the skillet, scattered with fresh basil or parsley.

Nutrition (per serving)

Sausage and Gnocchi Marinara — A Hearty Fall Supper When the Pork Runs Out