Gnocchi adventures

Each Thursday a small group of us get together for "mothers group" we have been trying to do a bit of an activity with the kids now they are getting a bit bigger and free play can get a bit boring for them.

This week everyone came to our house and we made Gnocchi, we also made our own butter to make the yummy sauce with!

the gnocchi recipe was really easy-

Gnocchi

serves 4 (we made a double batch)

• 4 (750g) desiree potatoes, unpeeled;
• 1  1 / 3 cups (200g) plain flour, plus a little extra;
• Potato ricer or mouli;
• Salt

1- Boil potatoes (unpeeled)  for approx 20-25 min, you want them par boiled not water logged.
2- once cooked let potatoes cool slightly, peel away the skin with your hands and press them through a potato ricer (i guess you could grate the potatoes), add a little salt (we skipped the salt)
3- Add flour to potatoes then use your hands to knead briefly until a soft dough forms. If mixture is still sticky, add a little more flour (the amount of flour added is crucial - too much flour will make the cooked gnocchi heavy and tough, while too little flour will cause gnocchi to disintegrate during cooking). Turn dough on to a lightly floured surface.
4- Cut dough into 4 equal-sized pieces. Using your hands, gently roll each piece out to form a log about 2cm wide. Using a lightly floured knife, cut each log into 1.5cm-long pieces.
5-Roll each ball of gnocchi over the tines of a lightly-floured fork, pressing gently with your index finger or thumb underneath as you go, to form a dent in the back of each one and fork marks on the other side (this creates a textured surface, helping sauces to cling to cooked gnocchi).
6- Bring a large saucepan of water to the boil. Add 1/4 of the gnocchi. As they cook, gnocchi will rise to the surface of the water. Continue cooking gnocchi at the surface for about 10 seconds then remove with a large slotted spoon and drain well. Repeat with remaining gnocchi. Serve immediately, tossed together with your favorite sauce.

original gnocchi recipe here

Our throw together sauce recipe

serves 8

• 1 bunch of basil torn
• small packet of pine nuts
• approx 1 cup of fresh shelled peas (you could use frozen)
• 3 tbsp of fresh butter
• 1 cove of garlic crushed
• 1 cup of grated Parmesan cheese

1- Lightly toast pine nuts in a dry pan then set aside
2- lightly blanch peas
3- Melt butter in pan and fry off garlic
4- add peas, pine nuts and torn basil to the garlic and butter and take off heat.
5- stir through your fresh cooked gnocchi along with 3/4 of your cheese
6- serve into bowls and garnish with the rest of your cheese.

Ricing the potatoes

Shelling the peas

Mixing, rolling and cutting the gnocchi

Carefully cooking in small batches

Delicious!

Making our own Butter

• 1 clean glass jar with tight sealing lid
• Fresh cream at room temperature

1- Fill the jar a little less than half way with cream, the less in the jar the faster the process. Any more than half way and there will not be enough room for the cream as it whips.
2- SHAKE SHAKE SHAKE SHAKE!!!!! 
your cream will begin to whip, keep shaking once it stops sloshing, soon it will begging to separate and will start to slosh around again but this time you will see a thin liquid (the butter milk) and some yellow solids forming.

keep shaking! once you have a lump of yellow butter floating in allot of butter milk you can strain off the milk (it is pretty much skimmed milk now so use it in cooking or drink it)
you can turn out your butter onto a wooden board and work it some more to get more milk out if you like.
you can also add some salt at this point if you wish.
You have now made butter, pop into a container, will keep up to a week in the fridge.