I am in St. Louis for the weekend. St. Louis is a great city and since Brian goes to school
here I have gotten to see a lot of it.
Last night we went to this great restaurant called Bailey’s Chocolate
Bar. This place was
fantastic. Quite appropriately,
the menu starts off with the dessert section and then moves to appetizers and
entrees. How could I not love this
place? Instead of putting bread out on the table, they have cookies and they
have a HUGE drink menu full of alcoholic and non-alcoholic sweet drinks. Dinner and (not surprisingly) dessert
were fantastic.
Seriously great chocolatini |
Homemade Lemon Gnocchi with Spinach and Peas (adapted from
BLOG and Epicurious)
Make the Gnocchi:
Ingredients:
2 pounds Russet Potatoes (about 4)
1 egg, beaten
3/4 cup plus 1 tbsp flour, plus more for dusting
1 tsp salt, plus more for cooking
Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Microwave the potatoes on high for 5
minutes. Then, turn them over and
microwave for another 5 minutes or until the ends start to soften.
2. Place potatoes directly on oven rack and bake
18-20 minutes or until you can easily slide a fork in and out of them.
3. Once potatoes are done, immediately peel them
and place unpeeled potatoes in a bowl.
We found that the skins just sort of fell off and we ended up scooping
potato out of the skin. Once in a bowl, use an electric mixer or potato masher
and mash the potatoes. Spread mashed potatoes out on a baking sheet (we lined
ours with parchment paper) and allow to cool for about 5 minute
4. Scoop 2 cups of potatoes into a bowl. You may have leftover potato, we
didn’t, but don’t add it to the bowl.
Top warm potatoes with the beaten egg and using a fork mix until just
combined. Next, top with the flour
and salt, and mix until no plain pockets of flour exist. Don’t over mix. The batter will not come together and
will look crumbly.
5. Lightly flour a clean surface and knead the
dough until it comes together and appears smooth, about a minute. Form into a ball and slice into 8
pieces. Generously flour a baking
sheet and, using one piece of dough at a time, roll the dough out into a long
rope about ½ inch thick. Repeat with all 8 pieces. Then, cut the rope into about ½ to 1 inch pieces. You can leave the gnocchi like this, or
using a fork, you can form the ridges as follows:
6. Using a fork, place a piece of gnocchi between
the back of the fork and your thumb and then roll the gnocchi along the
fork. You may need to use a fairly
large fork. This will create the
traditional ridges!
Now, you can make the gnocchi right
away, or place gnocchi on a baking sheet so that they are not touching and
freeze them. Once frozen you can
transfer them to a sealed bag for future use.
We made ours right away:
Lemon with Spinach and Peas Sauce
Ingredients:
1 cup frozen baby peas (not
thawed)
½ cup heavy cream
¼ tsp dried hot red pepper flakes
1 garlic clove, smashed
¼ tsp salt
3 cups packed baby spinach
Zest of one lemon
Juice of one lemon
1 pound of gnocchi (the homemade
stuff or store bought if all the above stuff is too much for you)
¼ cup of fresh, shredded parmesan
Directions:
1. Bring a large pot of salted water to a
boil. Meanwhile, in a large
skillet, simmer peas, cream, red pepper flakes, garlic and salt covered for
about 5 minutes.
2. Add spinach and cook over medium heat, uncovered,
stirring until the spinach is wilted. Remove from heat and stir in the lemon
juice and lemon zest
3. Cook gnocchi in the pot of boiling water: if
using the homemade stuff, cook about half a batch at a time. Gnocchi is done once all the pieces
float to the top. Using a
strainer, scoop the gnocchi out of the pot and place into a large bowl. Then, make the other half the same way. Reserve ½ cup of cooking water.
4. Pour the sauce over the gnocchi and toss to
coat. Add about ½ cup of pasta
cooking water to thin out the sauce.
Add more if you like. Top with the cheese.
Enjoy J
Note: the red pepper in this
recipe causes the sauce to have quite the kick. We loved this, but if this is not to your taste, use less or
leave it out. Also, we added a
little more lemon than what the original recipe called for and it was
great!
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