Mmmm...gnocchi!

Last night after work I made homemade potato gnocchi.

I have always loved it, but the best I have made at home was plopped out of a plastic package purchased at Wal-Mart.

Not wanting to pay a couple of bucks per package, I decided to find a recipe on Pinterest, and I finally tried it last night.

It wasn't too difficult, although it took a while just because it had drying and cooling time built in.

I popped a couple of potatoes in the oven while I was finishing up work. After they had cooled and I was off the clock, I  peeled them and grated them. Then I mixed the puree with an egg, 1.5 cups of flour, salt and pepper and rolled in into a dough. The dough was separated into eight pieces and rolled into a long rope. I cut the ropes into little pieces, rolled them on the tines of a fork and then put them on a cookie sheet to dry.

From there, they dried for a couple hours and took three minutes to cook in boiling water. I topped them with a venison ragu.

Nate loved them! And I had enough to freeze for a second meal. Nate said that gnocchi is his favorite kind of pasta - if you call it pasta. I don't know. I'm not Italian, even though I have been told I look it!

When I was in the process of making it, Nate said that I could have bought it. That I have to figure in my time in how much that was saving us in money.

However, when I saw that he liked my cooking and that I was successful in trying something new, I told him it was worth it. When you cook something straight from a package, you don't have the feeling of success that I had! It is so worth a little work when you make other people, and yourself, happy and fulfilled.

I told Nate I think if I had an Italian grandmother, she would have been proud. :)