Cooking in the Dark - Gnocchi with Spinach and Pine Nuts (by G)

Another day, another super-cell storm hits Brisbane.  Fortunately this time I was in the supermarket when the storm hit, unlike last Wednesday when I got caught in the middle of it.

This storm was more violent - hail smashed a skylight at the supermarket and sprayed glass over the fruit section.

I spent a quarter of an hour waiting out the storm before getting home to find there was a black out.  I tried to wait out the blackout by sitting in the dark listening to music and drinking beer. At about 9:30 it was pretty clear the power was not going to come back on in a hurry so I reluctantly went with plan (b).  I say reluctantly because plan (b) involved cooking dinner using the portable gas cooker - I don't think it has been used for years and I thought there was a high probability it would blow my hand off when I tried to light it.  Happily it lit with only a bit of cajoling and minimal explosions.

Using the light of my phone's torch I managed to toast some pine nuts, boil some packet gnocchi, wilt some spinach, combine everything together and add some freshly grated parmesan - sort of... my phone battery was getting pretty low so I had to use it intermittently.  The plating up was done by the light of the gas stove - I should do that more often because it is more elegant than most of my efforts.

All in all I was pretty impressed with my efforts. The gnocchi themselves were pretty terrible, having come from a packet, but I'm glad I didn't try to make them from scratch as I'd originally planned.

In-case you were wondering, the strange calamariesque things on top are shavings of parmesan. I couldn't find the peeler so I used the slicing part of the grater. They did not turn out to be the attractive curls of cheese I had hoped for.