Thursday, April 3, 2008

You know you are obsessed with blogging when...

...your roommate's boyfriend brings her flowers and your initial thought is "Yes! Something to take pictures with!"

In my last post, I raved about the Hazelnut Strawberry Cake. Well, you may have not noticed the amount of egg whites...by the time you have that cake and are dying with pleasure, you also have 15 eggs yolks! I hate to waste anything so I've been trying my best to figure out how to make something, anything with the yolks so I:

a. do not feel bad about throwing them out; and
b. do not feel guilty about eating them.

The other night I made a delicious spinach-caramelized onions-goat cheese quiche (sorry, no pictures- long day and too hungry!), which thankfully used a few yolks but I still had a little jar with 12 more...what to do...I also had some sage, ricotta, parmesean...so I decided to make ricotta gnocchi. I love making gnocchi with leftover mashed potatoes, butternut squash, sweet potato or pumpkin. So I gave it a shot with a simple sage brown butter (my simple and delicious go to sauce). They were really light and quite good. I incorporated the lilies with my pictures, as they are very beautiful and beckon in spring.


I am going to enter this into Project Foodie's Leftover Tuesday #13. I know, I am a bit early but I was always one of those kids who liked to turn in her homework early! :)

Ricotta Gnocchi with a Sage Brown Butter Sauce
(adapted from epicurious)

1 cup ricotta
1/2 cup grated Parmesan (and some more for sprinkling over the pasta)
1 egg yolk
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
2/3 cup flour
extra flour for dusting


1. Mix the first six ingredients together.
2. Slowly incorporate the flour
3. Shape dough on a well-floured surface with lightly floured hands into 2 (1-inch-thick) ropes.
4. Cut crosswise into 1-inch pieces with a lightly floured knife.
5. Using a fork, roll the pieces against the fork to create groves. See P.S.

6. Cook gnocchi in 2 batches in a pasta pot of boiling salted water, adding a few at a time to pot and stirring occasionally, until cooked through, 3 to 4 minutes per batch. They will begin to float when they are cooked and you can take them out. I will run one under cold water and taste it to make sure it is cooked through.
7. Lift out with a slotted spoon and drain in colander.
8. Meanwhile, melt butter in a 12-inch heavy skillet over medium-low heat until golden brown, about 5 minutes, and drop in the sage until crispy.
9. Toss gnocchi with brown butter in skillet and sprinkle with cheese.


P.S. How do you properly roll out gnocchi?
Check out this for pictures and more instructions.


8 comments:

Anonymous said...

mmm - looks delicious! The Quiche sounds great too.

Manggy said...

Nice! You are braver than I. :p I actually saw a gnocchi board when I went to the States but I thought, screw it, I'll just use a fork :)

Sylvie said...

I've never yet dared to make my own gnocchi. Your look yummy.

LyB said...

"Yes! Something to take pictures with!" That should become the "blogger's motto"! I'm obsessed too! :) I love your idea to use up your egg yolks, it sounds delicious!

Ginny said...

pam- thank you! I was excited that you started up leftover tuesdays again! I'll make the quiche sometime soon! It was really good and deserves to be shared.

manggy- Yep, I was once given one by a friend but in a move decided to get rid of it...too much space when a fork works just as well.

sylvie- give it a shot! Its worth it! plus, you get to make a mess! :)

lyb- haha! Thanks! It was really good!

Lore said...

Great inspiration! I usually have egg yolks left too and generally don't know how to make a good use of them

Neen said...

Jealous. Wish I could successfully make gnocchi

Peabody said...

Yes, the world of blogging makes you look at everything in a different way!