Ricotta Gnocchi

Gnocchi is one of my favorite foods but it’s hit and miss in restaurants and even harder to successfully make at home. I’ve attempted to make potato gnocchi several times and it has never been stellar, which is always disappointing since it’s usually a several hour affair and ends with both me and the kitchen covered in flour.

This past summer I took gnocchi class at PCC from Ethan Stowell and he taught us how to make semolina, potato and ricotta gnocchi. I’m usually a potato gnocchi gal, but in this case the ricotta was not only the simplest to make but my favorite out of the three.

When we went home to Silverdale my dad made his version of ricotta gnocchi to go with our lamb (recipe coming soon!) dinner. It hit home! My parents gave me a gnocchi board for my birthday so I decided to give it a go as a side dish to go with my Beauties and the Feast October cooking assignment: Oktoberfest Beer Roasted Chicken. Both the chicken and gnocchi were a success!

Here's dad's uncooked gnocchi in Silverdale (he's a pro!):



And my first attempt... I obviously need to keep practicing!


Ricotta Gnocchi
Tyler Florence / Food & Wine Magazine

Ingredients:
1 ½ cups ricotta, 13 ounces (the original recipe calls for sheep’s-milk ricotta)
2 large egg yolks
1 ½ tsp. kosher salt
¾ cup plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour, plus more for sprinkling
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
Fresh sage

Directions:
1. In a large bowl, combine the ricotta with the egg yolks and salt until blended. Add the 3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons of flour and stir until a very soft, sticky dough forms. Turn the dough out onto a work surface and sprinkle with flour. Wrap the dough in plastic and let rest for 30 minutes.

2. On a lightly floured work surface, roll the dough into 2 ropes that are each about 1 inch in diameter. Using a floured knife, cut the ropes into 1/2-inch slices. If you have a gnocchi board give them a roll to create ridges. Transfer the gnocchi to a baking sheet lined with wax paper and sprinkle with flour.

3. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add the gnocchi and cook until they rise to the surface, and then simmer the gnocchi until firm, about 2 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the gnocchi to a bowl of ice water to cool them quickly and stop the cooking. Drain and gently pat dry.

4. In a large nonstick skillet, melt the butter. Add the gnocchi and cook over high heat, turning once, until golden brown, about 4 minutes. Serve right away. (We browned the butter with sage.)

Really, what's not to love about dumplings smothered in browned butter and Parmigiano Reggiano!?

And it's so much fun to cook in a kitchen with this view!

Golden Labs and Gardening

Both Curtis and I grew up with parents who were (and are) amazing gardeners. So I always envisioned when we had a house I’d have a large vegetable garden and yard to play in. But when we moved into our house and it was already beautifully landscaped we didn't want to rip anything up to plant a big garden.

But every year Curtis focuses on making our lawn as perfect as it could possibly be and slowly we’ve added new plants, a small herb garden and are making the yard our own. My project for this year was roses. There was an existing rose garden when we moved in, with several plants, but they weren’t the big roses that smell amazing like my mom has. So we planted nine new bushes this year in pots on our deck and around the yard. Roses such as Mr. Lincoln, Dick Clark and Double Delight, that should smell amazing. I’ve been trying to learn all I can about pruning and feeding and I’ve given them a lot of love. No flowers yet, but I have my fingers crossed that as soon as the sun comes out on a regular basis, the rose buds will too!

Gardening Tip: It’s important to drink a margarita while tending to and admiring your rose bushes

About the time I was starting my rose project Jenny D. did a giveaway on her blog for a gardening apron that she made herself – she’s super talented! So the whole point of my ramblings is to show off my darling apron and introduce you to Jen. She has a personal blog that I love following, but she also just started a new project: Girl Has Thyme.

Girl Has Thyme is all things gardening from the view point of a regular person (not a master gardener) learning the ropes through trial and error. I’d recommend following it if you have any interest at all in playing in the dirt! Her posts are both entertaining and educational. She’s also a genius in the kitchen, so I have a feeling good recipes will show up from time to time as well.

And for Golden Labs, well it’s really just one golden lab: my number one boy Murray. He’s my side kick, jogging partner, hiking buddy and comes to work with me … anyone who knows me, knows I’m obsessed with this 80-pound furry blond bundle of joy. I couldn’t love this dog more. But the reason I’m writing about him is to give a long overdue shout-out to Haute Apple Pie.

Haute Apple Pie is a group of three ladies contributing to one awesome blog. It’s mostly about good food, but there are home DIY projects, parties and personal stuff thrown in as well. The design and format is, what in my mind, I hope Beauties and the Feast will become. Awhile back they featured a Double Dose of Pet Accessories giveaway and Murray won!

His new “dress” collar came from Rogue Collars. Anyone who has dogs knows that stylish dog collars are grossly over priced (and suckers like me are willing to shell out the dough) but these collars are super cool because they’re homemade, very couture and only $11! Sure beats the plain ‘ol collar you’d buy at Petsmart. Murray picked out the brown harlequin collar and boy does he look handsome in it!

And his fancy tag is from Make Your Dog Smile. It was a hard choice, but he went with the Scout Tag. It worked… Murray is smiling, real big!


Day to day he still wears his awesome “no stink” collar from Dublin Dog. Because when you have a dog who spends as much time in rivers, lakes and salt water as Murray it’s important to have a collar that doesn’t stay wet and grow bacteria, plus one that’s easy to rinse off. Dublin Dog has just that product and they rock!

Thank you to Jenny, Haute Apple Pie, Rogue Collars and Make Your Dog Smile for such generous giveaways!

Beauties and the Feast

So most of you have already caught on to the new awesome blog five of my best girlfriends from WWU and I started, but just in case you’re not aware, here’s the skinny:

Amber dreamed up the best blog idea ever. We brainstormed and debated and came up with several clever names (turns out there are lots of other witty foodies out in blog land who already claimed many of the names) so we finally settled on Beauties and the Feast because it was available, a fun play on words, and basically says it all: Six beauties. One feast. One blog where we gather to dish our reviews! We’ll each take turns “hosting” by featuring a new recipe and then we’ll individually post our feedback about how it turned out. We’re hoping lots of food lovers join in to consume, cocktail and comment!

The “beauties” range the gamut from a single girl working on a ranch in Wyoming to a very together, stylish, mother of two working full time in Bellingham, WA. We’re all in different places in our lives, and it’s not often that we all get to be together in one place, but when we are together we pick up right where we left off. And fortunately for the internet, we communicate weekly and this blog is bringing us even closer together!

We kicked off the blog by each posting an appetizer and cocktail and now we’re moving into our recipes. Here’s what we have so far:

Missy’s Parmesan Gorgonzola Sticks

My Cream Cheese Chutney Dip & Blue Cheese Crackers with Martha’s Berry Little Cocktail

Amber’s World’s Best Baked Brie (It seriously is the best)

Megan’s Sausage Balls with Mascarpone Chive Dip and Cinnamon Sipper Martinis

Jolie’s Tapenade and Blue Christmas Margaritas

Rachel’s Party Poppers

January Recipe: Wine & Tomato Braised Chicken

My favorite post so far: Jolie’s Life Reflections through Braised Chicken

And don’t miss BATF on facebook!