Jennifer B Photography-Addy and her friends-gnocchi-2019-0004 Cooking with Addy and her buddies.

It was a fun-filled Saturday.  I ran from an early afternoon shoot in downtown Southern Pines to meet Addy at a birthday party.  She was super excited because today we were going to have two of her best friends over for a sleepover and big sis would be out of the house.  We picked up her little besties and returned home just in time to start preparing dinner.  Now I am a planner and I planned out this week's dinners...tonight was Butternut Squash Gnocchi and spinach.  Made from scratch.  Well I decided to put these girls to work on making the gnocchi.  Emma grated the Asiago cheese, Bylee mashed the butternut squash, and Addy played in the flour (so my kid).
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Then it was time to mix the egg into the squash...this quickly became a complete mess...and they loved it.  We worked the flour in trying to make a play dough consistency... Jennifer B Photography-Addy and her friends-gnocchi-2019-0006 Jennifer B Photography-Addy and her friends-gnocchi-2019-0007 Jennifer B Photography-Addy and her friends-gnocchi-2019-0008 Jennifer B Photography-Addy and her friends-gnocchi-2019-0009 Jennifer B Photography-Addy and her friends-gnocchi-2019-0010 Jennifer B Photography-Addy and her friends-gnocchi-2019-0011 Jennifer B Photography-Addy and her friends-gnocchi-2019-0013 Jennifer B Photography-Addy and her friends-gnocchi-2019-0014

After I scraped the mixture off the walls, it started to come together nicely.  They then made snakes out of their dough. Jennifer B Photography-Addy and her friends-gnocchi-2019-0015 Jennifer B Photography-Addy and her friends-gnocchi-2019-0016 Jennifer B Photography-Addy and her friends-gnocchi-2019-0017 Jennifer B Photography-Addy and her friends-gnocchi-2019-0018 Jennifer B Photography-Addy and her friends-gnocchi-2019-0019 Jennifer B Photography-Addy and her friends-gnocchi-2019-0020

They made the weirdest shaped gnocchi I have ever seen, but they were focused.  It took a while and my hubby had to come in and help expedite things...or else we would be making them long into the night. Jennifer B Photography-Addy and her friends-gnocchi-2019-0021

When all was said and done, I boiled the gnocchi and then panfried them.  Then I sautéed the spinach in some oil until wilted and added a Cinnamon Pear balsamic vinegar (thank you, Flavor Exchange).  Added some crispy bacon pieces and sun-dried tomatoes, and served it up to the girls.  They ate it up!!!

After dinner we had some ice cream and I am pretty sure they wore me out since I went to sleep before they did. Jennifer B Photography-Addy and her friends-gnocchi-2019-0022