Making Gnocchi from scratch

So I had some leftover baked potatoes and I decided to peel them and make some gnocchi. If you don’t know what they are here is a link from Wikipedia: Gnocchi

I really like the Italian dumplings so I went to work.

Now I don’t have a potato ricer so I just used a fork to break up the potatoes into crumbles then mixed in 1 egg to the 2 small potatoes that I had left over. Then added flour until the dough was no longer sticky (Sorry I did not measure this all out because it was just a quickie to get some Gnocchi in the freezer for a future use and to use up the leftover baked potatoes).

Then I added more flour and cut off a small handful of dough and rolled into a long rope about ¼ an inch thick and then cut the rope into ½ inch pieces, then I indented them with the end of a wooden spoon (you can also use your pinkie to make indentations, just flour your pinkie first!) so that they would hold whatever sauce I will be putting them in (Actually they will be used this time in a chicken soup recipe).

After I cut the potatoes with a fork it hit me that I could have grated the potatoes on the smallest side of my box grater and that probably would have worked great (no pun intended.)!

Well these baby’s will be going into my next pot of chicken soup, now mind you they do not take long to cook at all so if you use them for soup add them the last 5 minutes to the cooked soup. Make sure the soup is simmering well and when the Gnocchi float to the top they are done. You could also ladle out some of the broth and cook the Gnocchi separate then add all to the soup and serve. So yummy.

Almost Vegetarian Chili

I love chili, from chili made with beef, to veggie chili. I wanted to make a pot for this cold that I have so I was off to the pantry to see what was in there. I found a package of pinto beans and a package of black beans so I thought why not make two bean veggie chili?

So I did not want to make two large pots of beans for my chili so I just made a half cup of each. First I picked through the beans then rinsed them and put them in separate pots. Cooked for about 2 hours then added salt to both of them and combined the two into the bigger pot. I had to add water to the beans as they cooked, maybe next time I will add more water in the beginning. To the pot I added about ½ cup of onions and about 4 cups of chicken stock (that is why it is ‘almost vegetarian’). Then I added 1 tsp. Thyme, ½ tsp. cumin, 1 tablespoon chili powder and some more salt and pepper to taste. To that I added some frozen vegetables (Carrots, broccoli, and cauliflower), 1 8 oz. can tomato sauce (I did not have any diced tomatoes in the pantry), then tasted to see if the seasonings were just right. It was really good but it needed a bit more salt. The pintos and black beans really complement each other. You may want to double the amount of beans, but I wanted just the flavor.

I also decided to try a double apple pie. It has a top and bottom crust and a crust in the middle. I cut out a round of dough and pre baked it in the oven on a baking sheet lined with parchment. Then I put the bottom crust in a deep dish pie plate, and poured in caned pie filling that I doctored up a bit with a little more sugar and cinnamon. I layered some of the pie filling, then placed the baked round of dough on top of that then more filling and topped with the top crust. Here is a picture, can you see the extra crust layer?