apparently i have onions

You may remember, a while I go I made the bold declaration that I was not a daring baker.

Daring Bakers was a great idea, try something new, extend myself, new skills etc etc.

The reality was that I ended up with huge piles of cakes, needed to buy equipment I've never used since and had to compete with blogs full of stay at home mum-days of sunlight photography-gee I'm a little board so I'll bake this great cake posts. Sorry, but you know it so is.

I really can't eat a whole cake on my own. And as I cycle to work it's too hard to transport it there - the refuge of most sad single girl bakers.

But then Daring Cooks came along. Nice stuff that I can have for dinner, and take the left overs to re-heat for lunch, or bung in the freezer and I was sold. This month is actually the first Daring Cooks' challenge. Shelly from Musings from the Fish Bowl hosted this month's challenge, which is ricotta gnocchi from Judy Roger's Zuni Cafe Cookbook. You'll have to excuse me, I'm known for my abbreviated recipes (and I'm on my fourth glass of wine for tonight - hurrah!), but this is how it goes.

500gm fresh ricotta (I'm not sure what kind of ricotta you would be using if it weren't fresh, but this is just what the recipe says. So put the mouldy ricotta back in the fridge and get some fresh stuff out)
2 large, cold eggs lightly beaten
1 tblspn melted butter
2-3 sage leaves or some grated lemon zest
1/4 cup grated Parmesan
salt
Plain flour for making the gnocchi.

Method
The day before you make the gnocchi you need to drain the ricotta. You can do this in a cheese cloth, or like me in a nice uber-thin tea towel (thank you to the cheapo souvenir salesmen in the Khan a-Kalili markets in Cairo for my Egyptian cotton tea towel), attached over a measuring jug with a rubber band. As you can see, quite a lot of fluid came out, and it stops the gnocchi being too soggy and disintegrating in the pan.

Once the ricotta is drained, mash it up in a bowl to get rid of the lumps, and stir through the eggs (mixing well). Add the sage to the butter if you're using it (I didn't) and once it's cooked for a bit stir it through the ricotta as well. Add the cheese and the salt.

Using two teaspoons form the dumplings and VERY gently coat them in flour, handling them as little as possible. The recipe suggests you refrigerate the dumplings for an hour to firm them up. I highly recommend doing this!!!!

Once you're ready to cook bring a large pot of water to a steady simmer. Then you cook them much like potato gnocchi. Pop them in, let them float to the top and then allow them to bob for about 3-5 minutes, until they're cooked firm. I would have happily bet that mine would fall apart at this stage, but much to my surprise they held together nicely!

I served them with my favourite spicy bacon and tomato sauce, with extra Parmesan.

However, it doesn't stop there. I had a desert version in my head. When making them I put a small spot of raspberry jam in the middle and carefully covered it over. Cooking them the same way, I drizzled over a chocolate sauce.

I was convinced this would be like a raspberry and chocolate cheese cake. It wasn't quite like that, but the sweet ones were better I think.

On the whole these were much easier to do than I had expected, but left a little wanting. Maybe they needed more salt or cheese (oh yeah, no Parmesan in the sweet ones but some sugar instead). They were just a little bland. Probably potato gnocchi and cheese cake will be more satisfying. These are probably healthier, and with some practice probably will have more flavour. They were pretty good re-heated for breakfast this morning.

Give 'em a go, just salt well!!!

gnocchi made easy

whilst looking for something today – not sure what, think it might have been bus timetables – i came across canela y comino's lovely site full of delicious things, like peruvian chilli paste ...... mmmmmm.... peruvian chilli paste. but she mentioned her trouble with gnocchi.

avid readers of BHG (yeah, right), will remember i mentioned gnocchi last week and how easy it is to make. it seems that this is not the case for all. maybe i have been blessed with some suppressed italian gene, or perhaps it’s just one of those things that people are told is hard, and therefore they get so wound up about it that they doom themselves to failure. Kinda like brain surgery.

anyhoo, this is how i make potato gnocchi,

you’ll need: 1 potato per person, plain flour, an egg, a pot of boiling water, a fork.

• Peel and dice the potato and boil until well cooked. Drain potatoes and mash well

• As soon as the potatoes are cool enough to handle, put them out onto a floured surface. Add a handful of flour and mix it into the mash by hand
• Crack an egg into the centre and mix in. Also add approximately a handful of flour for every potato
• Continue to add flour while kneeding until you have a dough similar in texture to bread dough.

• Roll the dough out into sausages. It doesn’t really matter how thick as long as their diameter is consistent. Using the fork cut the individual gnocchi off the sausage (you’ll be glad i told you to get the fork out at the beginning. I always forget and have to rummage around my cutlery drawer with hands caked in potato dough)
• You can just cook them like this. If you want to get the little stripes on them you can either just press a fork down onto them, or i get the fork, and place it on the far corner of the gnocchi (cutting the gnocchi will have formed little rectangles). i then pull the fork across the dumpling, rolling my wrist up, so that the diagonal corner folds in over the gnocchi. Very hard to explain, but this almost creates little ‘cups’ to hold the sauce.
• Add the gnocchi in batches to fast boiling water. Once they rise to the surface they’re ready to eat. Make sure the water comes back to the boil between batches. Once they’re cooked scoop them out of the water between batches with a slotted spoon and add to the pot of sauce to keep them warm.

• You can freeze uncooked gnocchi on a floured baking tray and then transfer to a plastic bag. But once you get the hang of making them, they’re so quick and easy you probably won’t bother anymore. They’re much, much nicer fresh

Buon apetito!

On a personal note i went to a new argentinean restaurant tonight with the brother who is in town from up north. Big pieces of steak! mum ordered the goat leg. and that’s what she got. a whole goats leg. i kid you not (boom boom). i seriously wish i had a camera. we all helped out, but she took at least half of it home. it was truly delicious!

three things

well, that sauce sat in my fridge for about a grand total of 4 hours before i was forced to do somethign with it. gnocchi. oooooooo.... can anything be more comforting that a big plate of freshly made potato gnocchi.

there are three things that people think are difficult to make and pay a fortune for: pizza, gnocchi and risotto (oh, and jiaozi, but this is a european food post). these are three things that i really resent paying restaurant prices for, because i know how cheap and easy they are to make at home. i always make extra gnocchi, for work lunches and the like, and it's always a great temptation just to eat the whole lot in one go. i've found the trick is to make the first serve really small, so you can still have a second helping, but not eat the lot. todays batch were particularly silky and delicious. i normally cook them in a tomato, bacon and chilli sauce, so the batch of sugo i did this morning was perfect for this.

as i mentioned yesterday, since i started this blog, only a month or so ago, a lot of it has been about food. and while writing it i've realised just how many other food bloggers there are out there. and there are lots of women out there who can eat what they want and not put on a gram. i am about as far away from being one of those people as it is possible to be. i look at butter and i gain a kilo. the only reason i am not totally enormous (and trust me, there's plenty of me to go around), is a reasonable attempt at self control and the love of the pool and my bike.

however, not only are there hundreds of food bloggers, they all seem to be talking about dessert. now i'm more of a gnocchi person than i am a dessert person, but all of a sudden i have a million desserts i want to try, like dulce de leche cheescake squares. not something i should be putting in my mouth. errrr... and tomorrow i'm making cupcakes. these should be interesting, I have lots of different flavours to try (i bought tequilla today, say no more). so tomorrow's post should be a good 'un.

oh, and if there is anyone out there who acutally reads this (and i'm pretty sure there isn't), the spell check on blogger has given up the ghost, so please excuse my horrible spelling. it gets worse when i type.