Welcome to our third ever meeting of Eden Cooks

As I’m sure most of you have read already, Alys has other obligations that she had to attend to that prevented her from hosting this meeting, so I offered to take the duties of hosting this Eden Cooks meeting off her hands this month. I’m sure I won’t do quite as well as she has these past couple months with respect to hosting these meetings, but I hope I can do an acceptably good job for you.

I do have a great meeting planned for everyone this month, though. During tonight’s meeting, I’ll be sharing a recipe for gnocchi that I make for my family frequently. Gnocchi, for those of you unfamiliar with the dish, are potato dumplings that are a classic and flexible Italian classic. The sauce I’ve chosen to make with it is a classic parma rosa, but a great number of other sauces match well with it too.


Besides the awesome recipe I’ll also be giving away TWO $25 EF gift certificates during the meeting: one will go to the winner of our monthly Guess the Gadget contest, and the other to the winner of a trivia contest, so be prepared to pay attention to fun facts along the way.

Are we ready to get started? less

Welcome to our third ever meeting of Eden Cooks

As I’m sure most of you have read already, Alys has other obligations that she had to attend to that prevented her from hosting this meeting, so I offered to take the duties of hosting this Eden Cooks meeting off her hands this month. I’m sure I won’t do quite as well as she has these past couple months with respect to hosting these meetings, but I hope I can do an acceptably good job for you.

I do have a great meeting planned for everyone this month, though. During tonight’s meeting, I’ll be sharing a recipe for gnocchi that I make for my family frequently. Gnocchi, for those of you unfamiliar with the dish, are potato dumplings that are a classic and flexible Italian classic. The sauce I’ve chosen to make with it is a classic parma rosa, but a great number of other sauces match well with it too.


Besides the awesome recipe I’ll also be giving away TWO $25 EF gift certificates during the meeting: one will go to the winner of our monthly Guess the Gadget contest, and the other to the winner of a trivia contest, so be prepared to pay attention to fun facts along the way.

Are we ready to get started? less

Welcome to our third ever meeting of Eden Cooks

As I’m sure most of you have read already, Alys has other obligations that she had to attend to that prevented her from hosting this meeting, so I offered to take the duties of hosting this Eden Cooks meeting off her hands this month. I’m sure I won’t do quite as well as she has these past couple months with respect to hosting these meetings, but I hope I can do an acceptably good job for you.

I do have a great meeting planned for everyone this month, though. During tonight’s meeting, I’ll be sharing a recipe for gnocchi that I make for my family frequently. Gnocchi, for those of you unfamiliar with the dish, are potato dumplings that are a classic and flexible Italian classic. The sauce I’ve chosen to make with it is a classic parma rosa, but a great number of other sauces match well with it too.


Besides the awesome recipe I’ll also be giving away TWO $25 EF gift certificates during the meeting: one will go to the winner of our monthly Guess the Gadget contest, and the other to the winner of a trivia contest, so be prepared to pay attention to fun facts along the way.

Are we ready to get started? less

First I’ll give you the list of ingredients and then I’ll walk you through the recipe with lots of pictures

Gnocchi
2 ¼ lb. (1 kg) non-waxy potatoes
2 cups (480 ml) all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon (5 ml) sea salt


Parma rosa
1 tablespoon (15 ml) olive oil
¼ cup (60 ml) finely chopped onion
2 cloves garlic, crushed
¼ teaspoon (1.25 ml) black pepper
¼ cup (60 ml) white wine
1 pint (473 ml) heavy cream
6 oz. can (170 g) can tomato paste
1 tablespoon (15 ml) dried oregano
¾ teaspoon (3.75 ml) sea salt

(I’ll get into possible alterations that I can recommend as we get into the recipe a bit more. Also, as always, please feel free to take this recipe and make it your own if there’s an ingredient you don’t like or would like to include… GO AHEAD! Recipes (except in baking) are more guidelines than hard and fast rules.)

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Your potatoes can be any variety you like, but the ones with waxy skins don’t tend to get as light and fluffy as you will need. If you’ve never splurged on specialty potatoes, now might be the time to do so, as the better the taste of the potatoes, the better the taste of your gnocchi (pronounced knee-okie). My potatoes here came from the bottom of my potato bin and are a mix of Butte, Caribe, and Red Cloud potatoes. They are also a bit wrinkly, owing to the fact that I harvested them last summer, but they’ll work perfectly well.

I should also point out that I’ve used pumpkin or another sweet squash instead of potato, and it is wonderful. Make certain you drain and cook the pumpkin exceedingly well first to drive out all the moisture you can. If there is too much water, more flour will need to be added to make a dough, and then the dough tastes more like flour than it does pumpkin. When serving pumpkin gnocchi, consider serving it with a simple sauce to showcase the sweetness of the pumpkin.

The first thing that will need to be done is to boil the potatoes. When boiling potatoes, always start them in cool water so that the skins don’t crack as they cook. As such, fill a pot with cool water, place the whole potatoes in it, and put on the stove to boil. Depending on the size of your potatoes, you will need to boil them for 20 to 30 minutes (20 for small potatoes, 30 for really big ones). Most of my potatoes are medium-sized, so I’ll boil them for 25 minutes. Only start counting this boiling time when the water actually begins to boil. You can also microwave the potatoes for 15 minutes, but I prefer boiling to keep more of the moisture in the potatoes.

Fun Fact:Gnocchi has been made for over 2,000 years, but potato gnocchi has been made only since the 1500s when the potato was first introduced to Europe. less

Your potatoes can be any variety you like, but the ones with waxy skins don’t tend to get as light and fluffy as you will need. If you’ve never splurged on specialty potatoes, now might be the time to do so, as the better the taste of the potatoes, the better the taste of your gnocchi (pronounced knee-okie). My potatoes here came from the bottom of my potato bin and are a mix of Butte, Caribe, and Red Cloud potatoes. They are also a bit wrinkly, owing to the fact that I harvested them last summer, but they’ll work perfectly well.

I should also point out that I’ve used pumpkin or another sweet squash instead of potato, and it is wonderful. Make certain you drain and cook the pumpkin exceedingly well first to drive out all the moisture you can. If there is too much water, more flour will need to be added to make a dough, and then the dough tastes more like flour than it does pumpkin. When serving pumpkin gnocchi, consider serving it with a simple sauce to showcase the sweetness of the pumpkin.

The first thing that will need to be done is to boil the potatoes. When boiling potatoes, always start them in cool water so that the skins don’t crack as they cook. As such, fill a pot with cool water, place the whole potatoes in it, and put on the stove to boil. Depending on the size of your potatoes, you will need to boil them for 20 to 30 minutes (20 for small potatoes, 30 for really big ones). Most of my potatoes are medium-sized, so I’ll boil them for 25 minutes. Only start counting this boiling time when the water actually begins to boil. You can also microwave the potatoes for 15 minutes, but I prefer boiling to keep more of the moisture in the potatoes.

Fun Fact:Gnocchi has been made for over 2,000 years, but potato gnocchi has been made only since the 1500s when the potato was first introduced to Europe. less