Gnocchi... OH!

On a recent weekend I got it into my head that I needed to make gnocchi from scratch.  I still had some potatoes from my garden and this would be a good way to use some of them.  Besides, the gnocchi you buy in the grocery store can be pretty gummy and I knew I could improve on it.

I did some research on recipes and figured that Mario Batali probably knew what he was doing.  Besides, his parents have a deli in Seattle and he used to live in Italy - his recipes carry street cred.  I decided to use this basic gnocchi recipe, which you can find here.

After skimming the recipe I decided to increase the potatoes from 3 pounds to 4.  My reasoning was that 3 pounds of baked or mashed potatoes doesn't go very far and since I was going through the effort of making gnocchi, dammit, I'd make the hell out of some gnocchi.

Fast forward about a half hour... I've peeled, cut up, boiled, drained...

and riced the potatoes.

And then I realized... that's a LOT of potatoes.  To give you some scale, these tiles are 4"x4".

I ran back to the computer and checked out Mario's serving size.  Double crap: his recipe served 12 but with my additions, it would serve more like 16.  Gnocchi dough?  More like gnocchi... DOH!

I had to split the potatoes in half in order to work with them.

Seriously, I must have had my head up my butt that day.  The recipe clearly calls for oil, which you may notice is absent from the above photo.  I made the gnocchi without oil and they were fine but still: it was obviously amateur day in my kitchen.

By the way, that ceramic thing on the right that looks like a motorcycle helmet is a French main a sel (salt pig/cellar), which I bought in Brittany in 2000.  I love it and the memories it evokes.  When I bought it I also bought 2 kilos (nearly 5 pounds) of French grey salt for some piddly amount like $3.  Do you have or use a salt cellar?  Once you get used to it you'll never go back.

Back to the gnocchi... The mixing & kneading portion of this program is brought to you by... NOBODY!  It's too sticky and goopy and messy, so no photos.

After kneading the dough I separated it into balls and used this plastic thingy to cut it into smaller sections.  I rolled them out into snakes and cut those into the final dumplings.

At this point you can leave them as-is or run them over the tines of a fork to give them the characteristic lines of gnocchi.

Here's the best video I could find of the shaping process:

Start to finish the entire process of making gnocchi took roughly 2 hours.

Did I mention this makes a lot of gnocchi? 

This made so many gnocchi that I placed them on silpats & froze them on cookie sheets.  After they were frozen I threw them into a zip-top bag and returned them to the freezer.  We ate gnocchi for quite a few meals, quite possibly more than 16.  These are very filling and hearty.  I think they'd last a couple of months in the freezer but no longer.

To cook these gnocchi, simply bring a large pot of water to a boil and add the desired amount.  When the gnocchi flloat - about a minute - scoop them out with a slotted spoon.  Top with your favorite pasta sauce and VOILA gnocchi!

Why did I make gnocchi? 

First, I was curious.  Could I do it?  Would they taste good? 

Second, they were cheap to make.  The potatoes were from my garden, as were the eggs.  Flour and salt are both cheap.  And since I forgot the oil they were even cheaper!  Gnocchi are kinda pricey at the store.

Finally, they provided a starch that was local.  Many of the dark days challenge dishes I've wanted to make were better with pasta.  With homemade gnocchi I could confidently say that yes, this starch was local.

I'll definitely make gnocchi again.  Like I said, we ate them for a long time and they were delicious and filling.  Next time I think I'll enlist the hubbie to help with shaping the pasta, which was the longest part of the process.

I'll post next about how we ate the gnocchi!

It ain't over until the preserved lemons sing

I was recently invited to write a guest post on a blog I enjoy very much.  I focus so much on local cuisine and canning that finding interesting topics this time of year can be frustrating.  The only things in season are citrus fruits imported from Florida and Califorina.  My 9 chickens have collectively laid a grand total of just 6 eggs in 2011, all of which came in the past week.  Toby did a series on eggs a while back anyway.

I chatted with Toby and mentioned some of the tagine dishes I've been trying lately.  He encouraged me to blog about Moroccan food,.

The problem is, I know next to nothing about Moroccan food. 

• It uses lots of herbs & spices, specifically those that North Americans tend to associate with sweet: cinnamon, cloves, and mint. 
• It often features lamb or chickpeas as the primary protein, though chicken and rabbit are also found.  Apparently beef appears in many dishes as well.
• Citrus is a common ingredient, especially lemon.  The cuisine also relies heavily on dried fruits, almonds, olives, and honey for flavor.
• Dairy is rare.
• Couscous is a regular side dish.
• Many dishes are traditionally cooked in a tagine like this one:

  

  Lamb tagine, photo from wholefoods.com

It seems to have much in common with Greek and Arab cuisines, which makes sense given its location and history.

And now you know as much as I do about Moroccan cuisine.

When Hubbie and I were first dating we went to a Moroccan restaurant in Seattle with some of his coworkers.  We all sat on pillows and gorged ourselves on the delicious dishes, which came one after another seemingly without end.  I deeply regretted having worn jeans and really wished for a pair of sweats!  Food is eaten without utensils, which left me with fingers that smelled of spices for quite a few days.

Just last night I started a batch of preserved lemons.  If you don't know what these are but want to try some Moroccan meals with me in the coming weeks, go grab a few lemons, some salt, and a jar to make a batch for yourself.  They're shockingly easy to make and the end result is nothing short of incredible.

There are instructions over at Food in Jars for preserving lemons.

Tonight for dinner I tested a chickpea dish for the future guest post on Toby's blog.  It was good but I didn't have some key ingredients: cilantro, mint, and lemon zest.  Strangely I did have the ras el hanout, a random jar of which I found some time ago at World Market on clearance.  Supposedly you can make your own.

The chickpeas, while still tasty, fell a little flat.  I can't wait for my preserved lemons to be ready because those will be what makes this dish sing-a-zing-zing, providing a bright, high note that is unmistakeable in any dish supposedly from Morocco.

If you're ready for a culinary trip into the unchartered waters of Morocco, freshen up your spice supply, make up some preserved lemons and get your taste buds' passport updated: we'll be headed to Africa soon!

Aller-retour

In French the expression "aller-retour" means "to go and return".  When you want a roundtrip ticket you request "un billet aller-retour".  I'm hoping I'm back for good (or at least for a long stint) after such a long hiatus from blogging.  It's been a rough-and-tumble month and I've missed this blog very much.  Whatever ride January was, I was ready to puke and get off on 1/31/11.

Hubbie was gone 3 of January's 5 weekends on business trips, not to mention a couple in December.  I got really lonely being home by myself with the animals last month and did start to attend a Friday Night Knitting Club.  I knitted myself a gorgeous shawl I'll show you soon.

My mother and her 2 siblings finally came to the mutual agreement that it was time to move Grandma in assisted living after Grandma fell on her 93rd birthday (New Year's Day) in a room full of people who were helpless to do anything but watch her essay of gravity's strength and the fireplace's unwillingness to yield, even to little old ladies on their birthdays.  She was terribly bruised and in much pain.

We packed & moved said grandmother the last weekend of the month.  The transition has been difficult, especially on my mom, whom my grandmother calls constantly and for ridiculous things ("Cathy, someone stole my cane!"  "No,Mom.  You left it on your headboard in the bedroom."  "Oh, OK.").  At least she's safe, she's gaining weight - it's never a good thing to weigh less than your age - and she's in good care.

In keeping with the New Year's Resolutions, I re-organized and cleaned the laundry room.  During a weekend when G-man was out of town I pulled everything from the laundry room into the kitchen, bought & assembled some shelves, then organized it all in the new configuration.  That took a full day.  There's no before picture - I want you to like me, not be utterly repulsed by my home's storage areas - but trust me, this is a vast improvement. 

I'm pleased to say that after several weeks the shelves still look pretty much the same.  Unfortunately, there's a new pile of laundry that has replaced these and the other half of the room looks about the same, too.

I really, really hate laundry.

Also in keeping with 2011 resolutions, G-man and I have both been carefully counting calories and increasing our exercise.  I hesitate to say that we're "dieting" because that conjures up images of deprivation, rice cakes, and Crystal Light.  Those foods & attitudes didn't have a place in our home pre-diet, won't have a place here post-diet, so aren't welcome while we're "dieting".  In fact, we even switched to full-fat ice cream in our own form of diet protest. 

And know what?  I've lost 11 pounds and G-man is down 10!  All while eating duck proscuitto, regular sour cream, ice cream, pizza, and even bleu cheese burgers.  So that's not exclusively what we eat but "normal foods" are a daily occurrence around here.  Neither of us feels deprived and we're both eating very well.  I promise to still feature normal recipes on this blog and won't do any funky substitutions, like trying to pawn off highly-processed non-fat "sour cream" for the real stuff.  Pfft.  Screw that.

In other news, our oven died.  I ran a self-cleaning cycle a couple of weeks ago and it hasn't worked right since.  I suspect it was well into its 3rd decade so I'm not heartbroken to see it go but I'm not happy about the cost of replacing it.  We picked out a new one and it will be here on the 23rd.  That's 2 weeks and 2 days without a functional oven: no baking, no granola, no breads, no casseroles, nothing.  GAH!  I'll post about it when the new one gets here but until then we're stuck with the toaster oven, stovetop, and BBQ.

Speaking of which, dinner duty calls.

It's good to be back.  I've missed you.

Radio silence

Sorry things are a little quiet on the blog lately. Hubbie was out of town 2 weekends in a row & my family is preparing to move my 93-year-old grandmother into assisted living. 

I have, however, written several posts in my head!

Here are some of the topics I've been noodling:

1. How to adapt a recipe
2. Homemade gnocchi
3. Plan now for your spring chicks
4. Beef tagine with butternut squash
5. Results of my duck proscuitto project
6. Weather forecasting the old-fashioned way
7. Fruit trees
8. My current knitting obsession
9. New Year's resolution update
10. Pancetta (February Charcutepalooza topic)
11. How to cook with what you've got
12. Winter canning projects: citrus fruits

Any of these speak to you?  I have to go look at my pics to see what else might be in my camera.

Here's a terrible cell phone pic of my progress on my "Orchid Thief Shawlette".  Since this only my second lace project ever it's been a true challenge.  Surprisingly, though, I haven't thrown it across the room.  I guess being an anal, perfectionist Virgo has its benefits.

I've learned a lot doing this project.  It's taken a lot of concentration and the willingness to rip out rows upon rows but I'm just stubborn enough to do it.  Last night I ripped back 12 rows because of a single mistake I couldn't live with and my husband about keeled over, knowing that it represented maybe 2 hours of work. 

Oh well.

Let me know what's on your mind!  I look forward to hearing from you and promise to get some new content up soon.

Charcutepalooza

Having been an avid canner and fervent locavore for several years, I've slowly been sourcing more of our meats from local sources.  We only recently got a stand alone freezer, making large purchase impossible up to this point.  As a home food preservation junkie, the next logical step seemed to try my hand at preserving meats by making "charcuterie", the blanket term in French for any preserved or processed meats.  I guess we call them deli meats in English but it covers a lot more territory in French.

When I heard about Charcutepalooza I had to join.  I was searching for a reason to hit the $25 free shipping on amazon.com anyway, making the timing perfect.

My copy of "Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing" by Michael Ruhlman arrived about a week later (along with a bubble lawn mower for a friend's little boy... talk about a weird combination of items). 

January's charcuterie item is duck proscuitto.  Duck is expensive and I waffled over buying it.  I finally found 2 small breasts for $8 and went for it.

The process is simple: you submerge the breasts in salt for 24 hours, rinse the salt off, pepper well, wrap in cheesecloth, and hang in a cool place for a week.

Eep.  That last part is freaking me out.

For anyone accustomed to keeping meat in the fridge to prevent spoilage - so pretty much everyone in modern times - unceremoniously hanging meat in what is essentially a closet is, well, scary.  That's why I approached the duck purchase with such trepidation.  What if I spent $20 and it rotted instead of cured?  It's a waste of money and some duck would have died for no reason.

For the sake of Chacutepalooza we're supposed to have our meats cured, consumed, and blogged about by 1/15.  Since I only just hung my meat on Monday, and today's Wednesday, that's not going to happen.  My duck should be ready by this coming weekend because the pieces were relatively small.  I'll write about eating it another time.

Can I laugh now about having said "hung" and "meat" in ths same sentence?  Tee hee hee.  I'm going to do a lot of snickering about sausages, salami, and meat.

I've had one prior experience with homemade charcuterie, having made bacon last fall.  I guess I never got around to blogging about it.  I didn't care for the smoke I had used so the resulting bacon wasn't as good as I would have liked.  I have a feeling this Charcutepalooza challenge will advance my techniques at some point in 2011.  Who knows, maybe I'll actually invest in a real smoker?  The thought of smoked salmon makes my mouth water.

Do any of you have experience making charcuterie?  What did you make?  What would you like to see made during Charcutepalooza?

Braided scarf

We've had very cold temps here in WA lately.  We even awoke the other morning to light snow.

It was all gone by 9:00 a.m. but my 8:00 a.m. drive to work was slicker than snot. 

This is my lilac tree in the back yard.  There was a crescent moon that was too pretty not to photograph.

About a year ago a girlfriend thrust into my arms a large plastic bag from a fancy yarn store in Seattle called Tricoter ("To knit" in French).  I've never been there but would like to go sometime.  It looks fabulous from the website.

You have to know Nancy to know that she's got a Midas touch.  She shops at Goodwill and buys gorgeous vintage clothing that looks awesome on her.  She picks things up for a song in thrift stores and with her amazing flair puts them together in a way that makes it look like it's been staged for a magazine cover.  She collects paper and crafts little artistic things like paper bird houses, one-of-a-kind personalized namestags for gifts, and cards.

And then there's her garden - beautiful any time of year.  My yard looks like crap right now.

But Nancy has an Achilles heel.  The bag that she pushed into my arms contained a failed knitting project.  The scarf she had started was shaped like a V.  She had been trying to knit 3 strands together and it was too bulky.  It had dropped stitches and was a mess.  Disgusted and fed up, she gave me the entire project to do with what I wanted.

Hey, she can't be good at everything.

On Christmas day I started to frog (pull out knitting) it.  It took me the better part of a day because the strands were twisted together.  Frankly, the person who helped her start this project has no place "helping" a beginning knitter.  Nancy selected yarns that are difficult to work work due to the color and texture - you can't see what you're doing at all.  These were not cheap yarns either.  The price tags showed that each of the 6 skeins cost between $10-11.

I knitted three long panels and braided them together.  Each end is knitted together.  The braid is sewn together lightly to give it stability but to allow the strands some movement.

I don't have a before picture but you can probably imagine an ugly, bulky, dark scarf and that would suffice.

I am really pleased with how it turned out.

And so was Nancy.

Berry pancakes

Don't you love it when your significant other makes breakfast?

So do I!

G-man wanted pancakes and there was some buttermilk in the fridge that needed to get used. 

Here's the recipe he used.  If you've been reading my blog for a while, you might have seen it before.  It's our favorite pancake recipe. 

While he prepped the batter I defrosted some blueberries.  When I was a kid I didn't even know that pancakes could come without blueberries!  Even now, at 36, I think pancakes are naked without blueberries.

Nothing sexier than a man weilding a spatula.

Sorry the picture is fuzzy.  I had left the camera in the car overnight and it steamed up upon coming into the warm house. 

Or maybe I steamed up the camera watching Hubbie cook?

We topped off the pancakes with the boysenberry syrup I made last fall.

Add a cup of coffee and life is good.  Does Starbucks count as local if their HQ is just 30 miles from my house?  Yeah... I didn't think so.

Ingredient breadk-down
LOCAL: all dairy products, berries, syrup, egg
NOT LOCAL: flour, sugar, baking powder & soda, oil, coffee