Back to the writing about food I made rather than the writing about writing about food that other people made.

I made a simple mashed potato and chicken meal the other night and deliberately made much too much mashed potato. I wanted to get back to making gnocchi and see what else I could come up with. (The previous link is to my justly infamous sage and parmesan gnocchi with a browned sage butter and chilli sauce).

This time I went for a more basic spinach gnocchi. I had about two pounds of mashed potatoes and I added a pound of cooked frozen organic spinach and a little nutmeg and a teaspoon of white pepper and two teaspoons of salt. Then I added two cups of flour and kept stirring it in, adding more until I had a nice pliable (but still a little sticky) dough. I lost track of the exact amount of flour - sorry.

Then I rolled the dough out into rods about an inch thick with more flour to prevent sticking and cut them into about one inch by one inch pieces. Traditionally you flatten them a little with a fork at this point to increase surface area. I just used the knife I cut them with.

Meanwhile I had gotten a big pot of water to a rolling boil. I added a couple of tablespoons of salt and then left it on high while I rapidly made a leek and tomato and sherry and lemon zest and lemon juice and garlic sauce. Then I put the raw gnocchi carefully in the pot a few at a time and very gently stirred to make sure they didn't stick to the bottom. They are all done when they float to the top, which they pretty shortly did. Pour on sauce, add grated romano cheese. Good but nothing like the previously mentioned gnocchi - make those instead. Next time I will try butternut squash gnocchi.