Sweet Potato Gnocchi...My new nemesis

Never one to back down from a challenge, on my last day off i was faced with a large bowl of mashed sweet potatoes and no more desire to eat them in their current form. I had read on angrychicken.com that leftover mashed potatoes could be turned into gnocchi so i figured i'd give it a shot...i had a gnocchi recipe lying around somewhere anyway.

I read the recipe and as always i took liberties of my own. Since i didn't use a formal recipe i will not be posting one....this time.

I had been too lazy when i roasted them to remove the skins so i had to pick through the mashed taters and take the skins out. if you roast them before you mash (roasting with some butter makes them tastier than just boiling them) make sure you peel them and make your life that much easier or pull the skin off the baked potatoes. i used three giant sweet potatoes. after i had the mashed mush i added two eggs that had been whipped into submission and started to add flour. with a spatula i folded in the eggs and the flour in a bowl into the mashed mound. i don't know exactly how much flour you'll need because it depends on the quantity of potatoes you have. you must continue to fold in flour until the mound becomes like regular dough and stays together. i had memories of the last time i made pierogies and fought with the dough and used at least double to the flour because my ball wouldn't cooperate and was waaaay too tacky. once you have a dough mound you need to knead it a bit and make sure that the flour is evenly distributed throughout your ball. you want to make sure you do this on a large cutting board that you floured before you put your ball down. you can start slicing off inch wide pieces off the side of the ball and rolling them into long snakes. at this point you may want to flour the dough snake again and then flour the pasta you've formed so it won't stick. cut 1/4 inch pieces off the dough snake and they can be pressed on a fork if you want to be fancy and have an imprint on them. once you've formed all the pasta you're going to want to boil them all unless you've floured the hell out of the rest of them. they stick really easy...i know because i had to redo all the rolling with more flour. bring water to boil and boil them about twenty at a time. they let you know they are ready because they float to the surface.

there are different variations for sauces that can be used. i tried them with melted butter and cinnamon and they tasted like oatmeal and were very desserty. the second night i grated parmesano reggiano and melted butter and tossed them with that mixture. i preferred that combination more. i have lately been on the hunt for the sweet and salty.....

i was also going to Lydia's later that night so i used my roasted eggplant to make babagnoush. this time i used waay too much garlic and sliced my finger on my processor blade. i used alton brown's recipe from the food network website.

one day i'll finally figure out how to put links in and then make it easier to find the recipes i use....

my share was pretty hefty this week and i have a few challenges ahead. i've already killed the asparagus. i roasted them with olive oil and salt and wrapped them when they cooled in procioutto. they were delicious reheated too!

Let's see what this weekend holds for my tummy other than the tasty T-Flats i had yesterday that my old friend from high school LOVED!