Tasty Tuesday: Homemade Gnocchi

I have a few loves in life.  One of them is good gnocchi.  It is one of my favorite pastas and I never pass up the opportunity to try a new dish of it, usually at a restaurant.  Recently I stepped out of my comfort zone and tried successfully to make it myself.  I can’t find a gnocchi that I just /love/ from a grocery store and now I no longer need to look.

Wow is this easy!  I believe that traditional gnocchi is made from potatoes and this is made with cheese, maybe that’s why I fell in love with this recipe.  Another note, my husband /hates/ Ricotta Cheese so I was hesitant for a second, then I thought… nah, he’ll have to tough it out.  Well he loved my gnocchi too!  So it doesn’t have the crumbly ricotta taste that we think of with lasagna or other pasta recipe.  If you aren’t a fan of ricotta give this a try anyway.  You should be pleasantly surprised!

In a medium bowl, whisk together the ricotta cheese, olive oil, egg, salt, freshly cracked pepper and other spices.

Add the flour, 1/2 cup at a time, until it forms a soft sticky dough (about 1 1/2 cups)

Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead in about another 1/2 cup of flour or until the dough no longer sticks to your hands. The dough should still be very soft in texture.

Divide the dough into six pieces. Roll each piece out into a rope about 1 inch thick. [You know when you were a kid and loved to make snakes with play-dough? Yah, me too :)]

Cut the rope into 1 inch pieces.

If you are cooking the gnocchi now, begin boiling a large pot of water. When the water is boiling vigorously, drop the dough pieces into the water. As the gnocchi boil they will begin to rise to the surface. Once all of them are floating on top, let them boil for about 30 seconds to one minute more to ensure thorough cooking, a total of about 5 minutes. Drain in a colander.

Top drained gnocchi with your favorite sauce or garlic butter, salt, and pepper. Enjoy!

I had bought a very large tub of Ricotta Cheese so I had enough cheese to make a triple batch to freeze some for later dinners.  If you do the same instead of boiling all of your newly formed gnocchi place what you want to save on a parchment lined baking sheet and pop it in the freezer (uncooked). After an hour in the freezer, transfer them to a zip lock bag and keep in the freezer until you’re ready to eat them. To prepare from frozen, simply drop the frozen gnocchi in boiling water and boil until they float, it doesn’t take that much longer about 6 or 7 minutes to cook.

Enjoy!

– Leanne from MilitaryAvenue.com

 
Join Us    Leanne is the very busy mother of four boys without much time for complicated recipes. But she loves to cook when she can (especially with a glass of wine in hand).  You can find more recipes from Leanne and others from the MilitaryAvenue Team by clicking here: http://militaryblog.militaryavenue.com/search/label/RecipebyLeanne KocsisonTuesday, August 07, 2012Email ThisBlogThis!Share to TwitterShare to FacebookShare to PinterestMilitary Life:dinner,Leanne,Recipe