Gnocchi Heaven!

Let me preface this by saying this is most definitely a Sunday night dinner.  You need some patience with this recipe and Sunday is THE day for it.  Making homemade Italian pastas and dumplings is not the easiest, but it is definitely worth it!  Serve these dumplings with the Single girl dinner vodka sauce and you really have a fabulous dinner!

This recipe is adapted from Mark Bittman.  Through trial and error I've added some steps and removed most of the confusion (I hope).

Serves 2 hungry people

Ingredients:

1 lb russet potatoes
salt/pepper
1 1/3 cup flour (plus more for the inevitable potato fail)

1) Peel and cube potatoes and cook in boiling water until tender (about 15-20 minutes)
2) Drain and mash potatoes in separate bowl and add salt and pepper to taste (so far so good)
3) Let the potatoes cool about 10 minutes in the fridge
4) Put a large pot of water on to boil
4.5) Preheat oven to 425 degrees and spray a banking sheet with olive oil (you might need 2 baking sheets)
5) Remove flour from fidge and add initial 1 1/3 cup of flour to potato mix and knead into the potato for about 2 minutes
6) Pinch some dough off and see if it holds it shape in a pot filled with boiling water, if it holds it shape you are ready to go
7) Take about a cups worth of dough and roll into a snake (Playdough worm style), if you are having trouble rolling the dough it is either too hot (READ: put back in fridge) or you need more flour (READ: add some).  It is most likely a combination of both so add a little flour and mix in and then put back in the fridge for five minutes.  This really helped our gnocchi develop into the correct texture of dumpling.
8) Cut the gnocchi worm into inch size pieces and don't let them touch each other
9) Carefully toss the pieces one at a time in the boiling water and remove when they float to the top and hang out for about 15 seconds extra (you can have more than one gnoccho in the pot, but put them in separately)
10) As you remove these from the water with a slotted spoon, place on the baking sheet.  Don't worry if there is a bit of extra water as this will cook off in the oven
11) Once you have a filled baking sheet, lightly spray again with olive oil and sprinkle a dash of salt and pop in the oven until a golden brown color on top (about 15-20 minutes)

12) Remove from oven and serve with favorite sauce and freshly chopped basil and parmesan cheese!

These do not keep in the fridge but you are kidding yourself if you think you will have leftovers (trust me!)