Blue Cheese Gnocchi Salad

After Beethoven bludgeoned my brain with his massive Ninth Symphony and overwhelming Missa solemnis, I needed nourishment—for my body and tattered soul. Beethoven is famous for pushing the Classical genres (of symphony, string quartet, and keyboard sonata) to such a high level of artistic merit that many composers were completely terrified to follow him in the same forms. So Chopin turned to piano miniatures, Schumann to song cycles, and Liszt just transcribed what other people wrote.

Luckily Beethoven never cooked. So I have no shame in offering up my modest gnocchi salad for your eating pleasure. I made it up yesterday, don't ask me how, and it was so good after it descended into my belly that I rushed upstairs and wrote several more paragraphs about Beethoven's late style. How's that for effective?

This time I didn't make my own gnocchi; I bought a package of DeLallo's. DeLallo has become my go-to brand for quality Italian pasta products, especially their whole wheat pastas. Their gnocchi was nice and chewy, much more satisfying than my last, over-ethereal attempt.

Blue Cheese Gnocchi Salad

uncooked potato gnocchi, enough for 2 hongry to 4 less hungry people
1/4 onion, thinly sliced or chopped
2 medium carrots, peeled and roughly chopped
1 stalk celery, thinly sliced or chopped
a handful of crumbled blue cheese
several leaves of lettuce, washed and hand-torn

1. Fill a medium pot with water. Add the onion. Bring to a boil.
2. Add the carrots and celery. After 2 minutes of boiling, add the gnocchi. Stir.
3. When most of the gnocchi has floated to the top of the water, drain it all together.
4. Line each person's bowl with lettuce. Meanwhile, mix the gnocchi and cooked vegetables with blue cheese to taste.
5. Spoon the gnocchi mixture onto the lettuce. Serve hot.