Potato gnocchi

Potato gnocchi with basil walnut pesto.

Today I wanted some gnocchi but I didn't want the kind you can get packaged at the grocery store. To me, the ones that come in the package are way too heavy and sit in my stomach like a load of bricks.

I wanted the light and pillowy ones that you can find at fine dining restaurants. 

The first thing I did was to boil two large russet potatoes that I cut in half.

The skins practically fall off on their own.

Then I hunted down a gnocchi recipe here. The steps seemed pretty straightforward and didn't require using a ricer which I don't own.

I mashed the potatoes with a fork.

I made a well with the potatoes and added in 1 whisked egg.

I ended up adding in about 1 cup of flour. I decided to try two versions.

I folded in some chopped spinach and basil into the one on the left.

I ended up running out of dough and the one on the right ended up a bit wetter and harder to work with.

Doing the roll against the fork was harder than it looked - the gnocchi did come out a bit oddly formed.

I prepared a small serving of both kinds. 

The spinach and basil gnocchi with marinara sauce.

Potato gnocchi with pesto.

The potato gnocchi turned out really great! They were light and fluffy and delicious.


The spinach and basil gnocchi? Not so delicious. Maybe it was the drier dough - but they were heavy and tasted slightly of raw flour - yuck.


So I guess it was better to go for a wetter dough and add less flour. 


The recipe made a lot of dough - I will have to figure out a recipe for breakfast gnocchi:-)

Basil cashew pesto

Basil cashew pesto over mashed potatoes.

 

I had a craving for pesto the other day. I picked up a big bunch of basil at the store and completely forgot to pick up some pine nuts.

Doh!!

I did find a container of cashews in my cupboard. 

And so basil cashew pesto was born.

It turned out creamy and packed a great basil punch and the cashews added just a hint of sweetness that I loved.

The pesto made another appearance at lunch.

Steamed green beans and sauteed mushrooms.

The mushrooms came out perfectly browned.

And then I smothered everything with pesto!

Basil cashew pesto

Ingredients:

2 large bunches of basil
1 Tbsp of olive oil
1/4 cup of cashews
2 Tbsp of water
2 cloves of garlic
salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

Place all the ingredients into a blender, food processor or use an immersion blender and blend until you have a thick paste.

Enjoy!