Pumpkin rage & cooking intuition

KEN LAMBERT / THE SEATTLE TIMES

OK, this was meant to be a post on delicious pumpkin gnocchi for my 'pumpkin challenge', including recipe. The above picture is what pumpkin gnocchi should look like.

Unfortunately on Sunday night here we did not have this, and I'm afraid to say there was a tantrum - not from the 3 year old but from me. There was a time years ago when my kitchen tantrums were much more frequent - eggs breaking on attempted separation, butter that wouldn't rub into flour, over beaten cream, burnt whatever - you get the picture. But thankfully these days they don't happen so much. I don't care so much and who cares what it looks like if it stops the kids nagging me for food, right?

So, the other night there was lots of swearing about pumpkins and being time poor and cooking elaborate dishes for my food-loving Mr. as I realised that the gloopy mess in front of me was not going to amount to a passable (and certainly not delicious) dinner.

It was truely awful and it dawned on me that I hadn't listened to my cooking intuition.
It had been trying to tell me that:
• I don't really feel like cooking tonight so I stick to something simple
• It's 'movie night' and I'd like to sit down and watch Harry Potter with the kids rather than cook
• This is a really watery pumpkin and probably won't make a good gnocchi

I ignored all the signs that this was a disaster in the making and my lesson is to try to remember to listen to my cooking intuition to have a happy experience. And to give up on that damned pumpkin. It's beaten me. Right, mass quantities of soup it is...