One of those days

This morning/day was just one of those days. I was running behind because I couldn't find my keys (shocking), but let me back up. Somewhere between putting my "coat" ( for those of you that know me well coat is a loose term) on getting my breakfast and coffee ready I picked my Keys up and put them in my pocket. Fast forward to me frantically and angrily digging through my purse, getting extremely frustrated, I for some reason slipped my hand in my pocket and screamed "they're right here I have them" and flying out the door - later than I wanted but still on time for work. Go to open my door...frozen shut, as are the three other doors on my car. Finally get the passenger side back door open can't get passenger front open...can't get any door open. So in the freezing cold I'm blow drying BLOW DRYING the seal of my car hoping it would open, after a good 5-7 minutes of this, it finally does! With a frozen muffin and cold coffee I was off to work...and only 20 minutes late. Gotta love michigan! :)

Whoa!!!

So I know that my car isn't really "buried in" but having the plow fly by numerous times today and the huge amounts of snow we got was fun! Luckily it was all "dust", my low rider swerved a little, but all good! My bigger annoyance are the people who, on a one way street clearly see you wiping your car off, and no one in the lane next to them REFUSE to get over! Drives me batty! Ok, end rant! Anyways, the decent amount of accumulation (the second pic is of my door when opened and nothing wiped off) has made it even more beautiful! My dog loves the snow she runs throw like it's a pool of water!

You know you live in Michigan when

This lake effect snow is not messing around! It can go from clear to NO visibility in .01 seconds, not complaining...actually loving!

Anyways, you know you live in Michigan when at a stop light your window is done and you are grabbing your wiper blade to drop against your windshield because the ice has built up from five minutes ago when you were wiping your car off!!

Happy happy happy! (Name that show...if you can't you need to watch! :))

Slow Cooker 101 - this gem is FREE at Amazon today (Originally 19.95) for the Kindle.  Best thing with that is you don't have to physically own a kindle to get this, if you have a computer, smart phone, iPad, tablet, download the Kindle app and you are able to read this on there!  During these cold days, all of us want nothing more than a nice warm meal, and a slow cooker is a great way to do that! I can't wait to dive into this! (Click the picture to go directly to the site to purchase this!)

Photo credit www.amazon.com 

My attempt at making Gnocchi

Not only is this about my attempt (and success) at making Gnocchi.  It's also about my attempt at "food blogging", and how far I have to go.  I get so excited about making a new recipe, that I forget to stop and take pictures along the way.  I will get there, and if have to re-create what I can! Anyways.  Thanks to my good friend Holly for recommending smittenkitchen.com I am now obsessed with reading her blog.  Side note, Holly was telling me about how she made gnocchi from the smitten kitchen cookbook and if I had a few extra dollars it would definitely be worth buying.  Well, I enjoy LOVE cookbooks (something my mom has passed down on to me), and I have been wanting to try gnocchi.  I didn't have the few extra dollars right then, so I went and moseyed over to smitten kitchen's blog and lo and behold what do I find, her recipe, that's in her book, for gnocchi! WIN! I get the recipe, and it didn't cost me the few extra dollars! (even though I do still plan on getting the book!) Ok, back to my experience...

Like I said I'm still working on my skills as a food blogger.  The original recipe called for these to "float" in a tomato broth.  It didn't sound like something that I would love, and I asked Holly what she thought of it, and said it wasn't her favorite, so I decided to pass.  Instead I just made a pan roasted tomato "sauce".

Start with 2lb of potatoes - about 3-4.  Bake them in a 400 degree oven for about 45 minutes - 1 hour, until a thin knife can easily pierce them!

While the potatoes are baking, get a skillet, sweat 2 cloves of minced garlic - mine "toasted" - in 2-3 tablespoons of olive oil.

Once the garlic has sweated, I quartered 1lb of Campari tomatoes - pre-salted - because tomatoes need salt, and placed them in the skillet. Turned the heat to low and let them reduce. I added some dried basil leaves, italian seasoning, s&p.

Once the tomatoes were nice and soft, I added 1 tablespoon of Balsamic vinegar, but about 1/2-3/4 tablespoon of brown sugar for a little sweetness.  The tomatoes will start to reduce and thicken, you will think that it looks like tomato juice, but cooking this on low for well over an hour will cause a wonderful sauce.  Just give it a stir every once in a while!  Also, because I love garlic, on top of the two cloves I minced beforehand, I smashed two more cloves and threw them in for flavor!

After an episode of Duck Dynasty, (don't judge me, it's a clean show, that's ridiculously funny, Jack) my potatoes were ready. I used four, but after I had peeled one of the potatoes I realized that I didn't have a picture of them yet (oh the travesty)!

To avoid burning your fingers, not saying I did..., make sure you let them cool - the recipe says about 10 minutes, maybe a few more.  Once they are peeled - let them cool another 10 minutes, again maybe a few more.

 

(and look at that I have a picture of all 4 peeled potatoes!)

Now, if you own one of those fancy schmancy potato ricer - get it out, mark it down on your calendar - it's your once a year use! Or, for most people using the good ole $5 box grater works just as well.  Use the large holes.  Grate the potatoes into a bowl.

 They will start to fall apart, which is expected to happen with a grater that's fine, I ended up placing the potato in the palm of my hand and just ran my hand over the grater, trying to get as much of the potato grated. Turned out pretty decent I'd have to say.

To the potatoes please add (because if you don't there will be major consequences) 1 large egg, and 1 tsp. table salt.  I'm pretty well known for NOT using my measuring spoons. Palms work just as great for that! 

Mix the two together, until combined and getting something that resembles mashed potatoes...wait, mixing baked, grated, potatoes together, is pretty much mashing.....nevermind.

Here's the part that made me question whether or not I had two lbs of potatoes.  The recipe calls for 1 1/4- 1 1/2 cups of flour, but you just don't add 1 1/4 and then see if you need more.  You are supposed to 1/2c.

Mix, then add 1/2 c., mixing again, and then add 1/4 cup and then see if this is enough to form a dough that does not stick to your hands.  Honestly I thought that I had enough after the first 1/2 cup of flour.  But knew that couldn't be right, so I added the 2nd 1/2 cup and didn't add anymore.  I figured that the amount that it would be rolled out on the counter and make sure it was not sticking would be enough!

Knead it for a little bit to form a dough, then divide the dough into quarters. See pic below, in case you don't know what quarters are...:) And remember this, never assume the obvious!

So the next part was not as easy as I thought it would be, it wasn't terribly hard, just had to find my niche.  Take one of the sections and roll it out into a long rope, about 3/4 in thick (I would probably make my less thick next time, and make sure it is more even - for a first time I was impressed)

Then take a nice sharp knife and cut the rope into 3/4 inch pieces.  Make a rope out of all 4 of the sections until you have something that looks like this:

Tip: Make sure that the thickness of your rope is as even as you can make it, and that the pieces are all about the same size.  This will really help to make sure that everything is cooked evenly.  I found that when rolling the rope out, use the palms of your hand and then also start from the middle and work out.  I'm sure that next time I do it, I will find something else that works, but for know that's the best I found!

Shoot, I hope that you are reading through this first and then making it, and not reading/making for the first time together, because you needed to have a pot with well salted water boiling.  If you don't, no big deal, just crank the heat and salt well! Once the water is boiling drop some the pieces in the water until they float - about 2 mins - drain them once floating.  DON'T dump your whole kettle of water out when draining, use a slotted spoon, because you have to cook the rest of them.  I did about 1 ropes length at a time, I could have done more, but I rolled out each section while one was cooking. 

Almost floating!

So, because I think that I'm a chef extraordinaire human, I do stupid things.  I had been reading one of the many other blogs that frequent and saw that she had made toasted gnocchi with pesto (let it be know that's my next trial and error!) I didn't think that I should put the pieces in a pan without cooking them first. wrong. I tried to put them in a pan with some EVOO, to toasted after I had boiled them, they just ended up sticking to the pan (I didn't think of the starch content) even with oil.  Unfortunately, I had to throw them away, but you will see with the pan below that there are parts that I had to scrape out and didn't get them all!

So back to this idea of toasting them.  I thought that would be a great way to eat these.  I love to have crunch to my food, so after I screwed up the already cooked ones. I put more EVOO in a pan, and put a handful of uncooked gnocchi in there with some salt and pepper and cooked them until they were brown on each side, about 5-6 minutes.  Next time I will add a few more minutes.

This was a great idea until I realized that my sauce that I wanted to reduce, well it did just that, reduced to almost nothing!  Here comes "what would be the best way to fix this without quickly cooking down some more tomatoes and not having access to any broth"

So, since I didn't really want to eat tomato skin I thought ok what can I do strain the sauce from the skin.  I tried using a paper towel and squeezing the liquid out with hopes that all I would have left was the tomato skin.  Note, if was at home I would have used my food processor and just processed it all together to get a sauce.  Then I thought well I will get a strainer and strain it through there.  Well that worked but, but I was left with was about 1/4 cup of sauce, not enough to coat anything.

I put the gnocchi in the pan to mix it all together and kind of re-heat it, because after my trial and errors they had cooled to room temp, and I wanted a nice hot dish!

After my trial and error I ended up dumping everything back in the pan and mixing it up and have it that way!

I wanted to have the toasted gnocchi in its own dish to try, but because of my lack of sauce they all were mixed in together.  I'm not a saucy person (pun intended) and so it actually worked out that there wasn't a ton of sauce. I'm sure that if I had a food processor to run everything through and fresh parm it would have been perfect! But this is what I ended up with

For my first time I was very pleased with will be looking for more recipes that I put gnocchi in!

Oh I almost forgot, since I was only making the dish for me, I flash froze about half of them and have a batch that is waiting to be used.  Just place them in the freezer on wax or parchment paper on a plate or pan and once they are frozen place them in a freezer bag to be used when you want! And you don't have to thaw them before cooking them in water, just place them in the boiling water or pan to toast and it will just take a few minutes longer to cook!

Click here for the recipe of this awesome potato dumpling like substance, trust me you won't regret it!

One of my next recipes is one for Sugar Biscuits! Can't wait for that one! Plus, I just love Pioneer Woman!

Monday morning...

#wokeupearly #breakfast #donutshopcoffee #bestmealoftheday #warmcar #bestdad #blakesheltonhoneybee #happymonday

Sunday.