On to food. Breakfast was a basic, cheap, wallpaper paste-y bowl of oatmeal with 1/4 a diced apple, cinnamon and vanilla. It was... oatmealy.
Dinner was much better. Better enough that I ate it twice.
Sauted Sweet Potato Gnocchi with Onions and Almond Cream.
Sounds fancy, huh? All I know is that it tasted so good I cooked the second half, which should have been part of a second meal on a different day. Oops.
Sweet Potato Gnocchi
- about 1lb of sweet potatoes
- 1 to 2 C flour
- Garlic powder or
- nutmeg
Pierce the sweet potato(s) skin with a fork half a dozen times or so. Microwave or bake until the insides are soft and done- took about 9 minutes in my sad, weak microwave. Peel while still hot- the skin should come off easily if the sweet potato has cooked enough. Put the "peeled" sweet potato in a bowl.
Smoosh the potato into a paste, making sure to let as much steam escape as possible. More water in the potatoes means more flour in the gnocchi, and that's a mess to deal with.
Add spices (no salt yet) and mix, then add the flour, 1/2C at a time, until the dough gets tough to mix, then add 1/4C at a time, and kneed with your hands. I used 1 1/4C flour to form the dough and about another 1/4C shaping the gnocchi.
When the dough holds together, but isn't dry yet, clump it into 3 or 4 balls. Roll the first one out like a snake on a floured surface, like a kid with playdough. Don't put too much flour, or your snake won't roll. Too little, though, and it'll stick.
When the snake is about 1/2" in diameter, cut it into chunks, from 1/3 to 1" in length.
You're supposed to boil them, but they usually fall apart for me if I boil without freezing first, so the first batch went straight into the frying pan, with oil, onion, and salt (always). Cook them until they're lightly browned and a little crispy on the outside.
Almond Cream
- 1/3C blanched, slivered almonds
- splash lime juice
- dash salt
- small clove fresh garlic
- water
All the recipes for savory cream sauce seem to have cashews, but since I don't I swapped them for almonds. If you don't have almonds, feel free to swap them out for something you do have. Prolly cashews....
Put everything in a cup big enough for a stick blender to fit. Start with just enough water to cover the almonds. Blend with a stick blender until smooth. If it's thick (mine was, which is why the dinner pic is from the second cooking) add some more water and blend again. I think I ended up with about equal parts almond and water before it looked right, but I might have used more water.
Pour cream over gnocchi and serve. This would have been super yummy with broccoli, but I'm not paying $2 a pound for broccoli, even if it were perfect (and it wasn't).
What's a "stick blender"? Could we get a photo?
ReplyDeleteWay too early in the season, but I'm wondering whether this gnocchi recipe could be adapted for butternut squash
Stick blender is also called an immersion blender. you can also use a food processor or normal blender. I'll try to get a photo up.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, this should totally work with butternut. Or even canned pureed pumpkin, but probably not the seasoned pie filling one. I've even done it with frozen squash from the store, it was just very wet, and took a ton of flour.
I also came here from MSN, and while I never, never, ever post on blogs, I feel like I have to! I made your sweet potato gnocchi and cream this weekend, and my entire family LOVED them. Even my 11 year old, who hates most veggies, and my 2 year old, who will eat just about anything. I thought everything tasted amazing, and I just felt healthy eating them.
ReplyDeletePlease keep this up, it's amazing. And know that you are inspiring at least one person who desperately needed to cut down her family's food budget, but didn't know where to start.