The Gnocchi Experiment

I've always fancied the idea of making gnocchi. Potatoes made into pasta- comfort food powerhouse! Except that I can't eat gluten, and flour is the third of four ingredients: Mashed potatoes, eggs, flour, and salt. Sounds deceptively simple, doesn't it? Except it's not.

When I recently found a recipe for making gnocchi from scratch in a gluten free cookbook, I thought it might make a good base for a pasta sauce made with an overabundance of tomatoes that I was recently gifted by a friend.

There are lots of steps, such as baking 4 potatoes in the oven for an hour, and letting them cool. Then you peel them, and run them through a ricer, or mash them. I couldn't find my ricer, so I mashed them while I listened to heavy metal music on 93X. It was a long process. I needed to stay awake.

Meanwhile, I cut up the tomatoes and started a marinara sauce on the stove top, adding two cloves of chopped garlic and a handful of fresh basil, plus some salt.

Back to the potatoes. When they were fully cool, I added the two beaten eggs and some salt, then the rice flour mixture that was in the cookbook, starting with one cup. Mix by hand, adding flour until its not sticky and it forms a dough. Quarter the dough, and roll into logs about 1/2 inch around. Slice into 3/4" slices. I just eyeballed it.

Then I was supposed to roll each piece over a fork tine to make a pattern. I tried to do that but honestly, it didn't look right. At least they were finally ready to be cooked in a pot of boiling salted water. They had to be cooked in batches, then strained. See? Fussy.

At least the sauce was looking tasty.

And I had also thought ahead to cook some chicken & red pepper sausage to toss in. So, there you go. Once I added all that to the gnocchi, and poured myself a glass of red wine, it made a pretty good meal. Of course, that may just be the wine talking. Which of course, was the un-named 5th ingredient in this successful meal.