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[linnea]

I'm Sicilian, so I've never had risotto.

I've had gnocchi that I bought at gourmet shops in Denver, but I can't find it here. I adored it, though. So tasty.

[chuanoplast]

For those not in the "know," gnocchi are small potato dumpling things. Also, I suck at descriptive writing.

Inev, I would totally send you some of the one hundred or more homemade potstickers that my family has floating around in our freezer, but they would melt in the mail, and email doesn't send food that well.

[AugustWest]

For those not in the "know," gnocchi are small potato dumpling things. Also, I suck at descriptive writing.

Inev, I would totally send you some of the one hundred or more homemade potstickers that my family has floating around in our freezer, but they would melt in the mail, and email doesn't send food that well.

I just found a big ol' Ziploc full of potstickers I made pursuant to AB's recipe in the freezer yesterday.  Maybe I'll fry 'em up good and tasty.

[Nabubrush]

For those not in the "know," gnocchi are small potato dumpling things. Also, I suck at descriptive writing.

Inev, I would totally send you some of the one hundred or more homemade potstickers that my family has floating around in our freezer, but they would melt in the mail, and email doesn't send food that well.

And how far away are ypu?

[chuanoplast]

And how far away are ypu?

I live in Northern Nevada when not at school in California. But if you ever came to our house pretending to be a handyman, my mom would force you to eat dumplings or some sort of homemade food. Apparently this deters robbers because they do not want to die from overeating.

[jough]

I love a good risotto, but it just so happens that I got two packages of frozen gnocchi on Saturday and made one that night for the first time ever.  I still have another package in my fridge. 

I may try making it myself sometime, but that would require getting a potato masher and we all know that buying a potato masher is the first step down a long and dark road, my friends.

[Nabubrush]

I love a good risotto, but it just so happens that I got two packages of frozen gnocchi on Saturday and made one that night for the first time ever.  I still have another package in my fridge. 

I may try making it myself sometime, but that would require getting a potato masher and we all know that buying a potato masher is the first step down a long and dark road, my friends.

I would never have imagined that you didn't have a potato masher.

[littlefallsmets]

And run the risk that the Good Eats police might show up and declare it a uni-tasker?

Of course not.

[wombat]

I have to find this recipe for the spinach gnocchi with no potatoes and post it. That will solve Jough's problem. I will see what I can do later on.

[side_show]

Jough!  You don't have a masher!  What?!  But what about all the things that need mashing?

I don't really like gnocchi.  There's something weird about it.  Even though I know it's not ravioli, when I bite into it, I hope that it is ravioli, and the texture is all wrong.  If I want mashed potatoes, I want mashed potatoes, not potatoes hidden in pasta. 

When it comes to fancy potato dishes, I have a croquette maker that I inherited.  Its from Belgium, and it's very cool to fiddle with, but I've never used it.  After the potato mixture is prepaired, the machine is cranked so that it pushes out formed croquettes onto a little tray on wheels, which you then wheel out from under the machine to place the croquettes in the oil.  I keep telling myself that one day I will make them, but I don't deep fry at home (it's sort of a rule) and never want to cross the line and have that much oil in my house.  It would be the end of me.  I only had real, hand made croquettes when I was very small - 4 yrs old - and visiting Belgium.  They were incomprehensibly good, but I remember watching the process of them being made and how much work was involved and the exact timing, and being sort of terrified by the effort involved.  Later, back in North America, I saw Tater-tots for the first time, and I was excited because I thought they were croquettes - I was a deeply disappointed kid when I Tater-tots for the first time.  I remember thinking: "how two things that look the same and are made of the same composite stuff taste so different?"  That is when I learned that care and quality ingredients make all the difference.

Oh speaking of old world contraptions, I got a hand-crank pasta maker for Christmas that I still haven't tried out.  Any suggestions?

[wombat]

Pasta machine: To start you should just make some fresh spaghetti and eat it with something simple like olive oil and garlic and grated cheese.  In my opinion there's no point in going to the work of making it from scratch and then adding so many other ingredients that you can't taste the difference from store bought.

[wombat]

OK, enough with the potatoes already:

Gnocchi verdi

1 lb spinach
1/2 lb ricotta
1 T butter
2 eggs
6 T parmesan
1/2 c flour

Cook the spinach, drain well, squeeze dry, chop. (You can use frozen cooked spinach for this perfectly well but I forget how much you need.)

Mix spinach, cheese, butter, salt and pepper and a pinch of nutmeg in the spinach pot and stir over very low heat for 3 or 4 minutes

Remove from heat, mix in the rest of the stuff, set aside to cool.

Take a heaping T at a time, and roll into a ball with floured hands

Cook a few at a time in gently simmering salted water. When they rise to the top, after about 5 minutes, remove with slotted spoon to a well buttered casserole.  Keep warm in oven while you cook the rest.

Saute some garlic in butter, pour it over the gnocchi along with a lot more grated parmesan.

You can find a ton of recipes for this on the web, of course, but none of them had exactly this proportion of ingredients so I couldn't vouch for them.  Some have a lot more flour, which would be easier to work with but I suspect not as delicate and delicious.  I would not try the ones with less flour, I think it would end in tears.

[Ruta Bagas]

I agree wholehearedly with Wombat, except that I'd've recommended making linguine, because I love linguine with my very soul.

I would suggest that, when you make the dough, you don't try to be fancy and make a well of flour on a flat surface to put the egg in. That gets old really quickly if you're not brilliant at it. Nobody ever has to know if you use a bowl...

(Please note that the latter piece of advice is principally the result of my own hamfistedness.)

[wombat]

Oh yes, totally, about the bowl. My grandmother might roll in her grave about it but I definitely use a bowl.

Spaghetti, linguine, fettucine, whatever. The thing is to keep it simple. God knows don't start with something like ravioli, and don't drown it in tomato sauce at least not the first time.  Appreciate the subtlety.

[Nabubrush]

because I love linguine with my very soul.

This is the best part of you to love pasta with, especially if the pasta is fresh from the stovetop and still really hot. If you try loving it with other parts, hospitalization may ensue.