Homemade Gnocchi

Gnocchi is one of my favourite pasta dishes...ever.  I mean, come on, potatoes AND pasta all in one?! They are just a little bit of heaven. However, I never actually eat them because I don't like to buy them and we rarely go out for Italian.  So I decided to make them and they aren't as hard as I thought!!

I was taking a gander at recipes and found Gastronical Sovereignty's recipe for gnocchi.  After reading her post, I really felt connected (especially her bit about being a grown-up...there are few things I can do, but gnocchi is now on the list!).  Check her out here. She has a great blog!

Back to the pasta at hand!! Her recipe calls for floury potatoes (russet), I used Yukon gold potatoes because I love the way they taste and that's what I had on hand.  It ended up being about 7 decent sized potatoes. I also cooked mine in the microwave because it is easier (and faster) than the oven.  You can also throw them in your crock pot if your at work all day!
 

Slice open your potatoes and scoop out the meat of the potato.  Be careful because the insides will be pretty warm (don't want to burn your little fingers!) Lightly fluff your potatoes and add in the egg yolk (remember, save those egg whites! Waste not-want not).  Then you mix in your flour and spice mixture in gradually.  Make sure you season with salt and pepper heavily.  You don't want to have bland gnocchi!

You're going to have to get a little messy here and use your hands (hence no pictures).  Once the dough comes together, turn it out onto the floured work surface and knead away!  Here is a great video on how to knead (It's for bread, but it gives you a good idea on how to properly knead!)

Once you've kneaded your dough, take a piece off and roll it out into a long strip. Then cut off pieces into smaller pieces. Put them on a baking sheet and let them hang out until you're ready to cook!

Boil your water to cook the little guys in.  Add salt to the water because it will give it that extra little flavour! Once the water it at a boil, add your pillow-ey pasta by the handful and wait until they start to float. Pull them out and let them wait for the rest of the pasta is done.

Once all of your guys are done, I put them in a frying pan and added a little bit of sauce and some of the pasta water and gave it a quick toss to coat the gnocchi evenly. Add your sauce (I did a tomato and hot sausage sauce last night) to the top and enjoy!

Pizza Pie!

The Mister's favourite food is pizza.  He could eat it everyday if I let him, truly.  I'm sure he's like most other men who would much rather order pizza  and build forts from the left over boxes.  So, being the loving Lady I am, I give into his pizza addiction and we make it home!

We've tried a couple of different recipes for pizza dough and it's been quite the evolution.  The first pizza we ever made was a hot mess...HOT mess.  So, it's been a process of love and health! It's been important for us to try to find healthier versions of take away.

So, a recipe that we usually use is from All Recipes.  It is truly An Amazing Whole Wheat Pizza! I add in an extra cup of whole wheat flour (2 1/2 cups)  instead of white flour (1 cup).  I also use our bread machine to make the dough.  When we first started out, I used to make it from scratch (such a process!).  But having a bread machine makes life SO much easier. Start with the ingredients, add the oil (butter), then salt/sugar, flour and yeast.  Then you set it dough on the machine.  It is pretty easy-peasy!

The most recent dough recipe we've found is from Robbie's Recipe.  The Mister was after an incredibly thin and crispy pizza. This recipe is just that!  I doubled the recipe so we could have left overs.  It doubles wonderfully!  Once again, we made the dough in the bread machine.  After the machine does the hard work, I turn the oven on (full whack!), and split the dough in two even balls, put some olive oil (less than 1tbs) in each bowl and flipped the dough around (covering it in the oil so it doesn't stick to the bowl) and let it rest on top of the hot oven while I fix all of the toppings.

Anyway! This pizza turned out beautifully!!!! Check it out!

 The Mister had to get a picture cutting it!

A sign of a good pizza is that it can hold up under the great weight of the toppings you put on it... this one passed the test with flying colours!

What's your favourite topping to have on pizza? 

Healthy General Tso's Chicken

We love North American-ised Chinese food.  You know the kind you get at the mall that has enough grease in it to shine your floors? Yea...that kind, we love it and it loves our behinds.

The Mister and I are trying to become healthier (you are what you eat, and no one wants to be deep fried chicken nuggets), so I found a recipe that let's us eat General Tso's Chicken for significantly less calories!

Check it out here from Fave Healthy Diets, posted by Anne Colagioia.  It is truly amazing...I've made it twice since I've been home!  The Mister cannot get enough of it!

A couple little helpful hints:

The recipe calls for Duck Sauce, this is just a different name for Plum Sauce. :)
I've doubled the sauce, because we like it saucy  and it wasn't an issue at all. It doubles beautifully.
When dredging the chicken in the eggs and then Bisquick, keep one hand for the wet and one hand for the dry.
It says it takes 10 minutes prep and it might if I was a robot, but it takes me a little bit longer.
I throw in the broccoli (which I always add more than the recipe calls for because we love it so) in the sauce right before serving instead of serving it on top.


Let me know if you try it and how you like it!!