Sweet Potato Gnocchi with Brown Butter and Sage

I think I've mentioned before that I love potatoes in any form, gnocchi included. I usually buy the packaged and already made gnocchi because who really has time to make their own? It was probably over a year ago that I decided it was time to try my hand at this gnocchi making thing. I mean, I had made ravioli from scratch before and it wasn't that difficult so how hard could it be? So, I picked a simple looking recipe from a google search and got to work. I followed the directions and my gnocchi were looking really good. I started to get excited and thought "Maybe this will be my thing. Maybe I'll be the one who will be known for her homemade gnocchi". The future was looking bright; I was on a roll. I made up a nice sauce and the last thing I needed to do was boil them and dinner was served. However, when I placed my handmade creation into the pot I expected to pull out beautiful, firm, delicious gnocchi - instead, I got mashed potato soup. They completely fell apart. I was devastated and vowed never to waste ingredients on this devil dish again. Until today.

I decided I needed to try something challenging from this book and since I've already failed at gnocchi I figured it would at least make a good post if I failed again. The prep work went smoothly, there were very minimal ingredients and I was feeling good. Then I made the dough. She tells you to use items like a fork, a potato masher or a ricer (whatever the hell that is) and I was just not down for the Neanderthal way today, so into my stand mixer it went. The dough is supposed to come out loose and shaggy without sticking to the sides of the bowl. My dough never achieved that status. I must have added over a cup of extra flour and it was still clinging to the sides of the bowl for dear life:

I eventually decided this would have to do, so I gathered this sticky mess up as best as I could and moved on to my floured workstation to knead the dough and cut it into little pieces. This was very sticky and so I had to use more flour. 

This was before I was able to flour my hands. Once you flour your hands it gets easier, but you still need to add a fuck load more flour to achieve something that actually resembles dough. She warns you about adding too much flour, but you cannot work with it unless you do. So I dumped more flour on there and kneaded away until the stickiness was mostly gone.

Now I could make my gnocchi pieces. Once those were made and ready to go, I got a little nervous. This was the moment that would decide if we were having gnocchi for dinner, or pizza. I dropped the gnocchi in the water and waited. After a minute I gave them a little stir and....they were still intact! I did it! No mashed potato soup for me; not this time. Even if they tasted like shit, who cares?! Things were really starting to look up. Maybe I could be the gnocchi girl after all! And then I removed them from the water:

They look like chicken nuggets. But they tasted like gnocchi...so it's still a win. Next up: The sauce. This was easy. It was literally butter, sage and cheese. Basically, I served my family an actual heart attack tossed with sweet potato chicken nuggets. I was relieved when Calvin asked me for grapes and peppers to go with it though he had no problem munching this down and I admit, it was good. This is very light (for a heart attack) and a small portion is really all you need. I will probably never make this again, unless hosting a dinner party or something, and if so I would serve this as a side instead of the main dish. Either way, now I can say I've successfully made gnocchi and I am actually really excited about that.

high class chicken nuggets