Potato gnocchi are a great comfort food. Made mostly from mashed potatoes with a little egg yolk and flour they can be served with very little or the whole works. I love gnocchi with butter & parmesan but I will eat them with any kind of sauce really. The next time that you are making mashed potatoes, boil an extra pound or so, then add an egg yolk or 2 and a cup or so of flour. I’m sorry that I don’t have exact proportions but the recipe varies depending on how fluffy your mashed potatoes are. In the photos below I added 2 egg yolks and 1 and 1/2 cup of flour to the amount of potatoes in the bowl.
I add just enough flour so that there is some elasticity in the dough and it doesn’t feel sticky anymore. Then I roll out the dough with my fingers into long strands and then I cut the dough into little inch long pieces that kind of look like pillows. While you are working keep the cut gnocchi on a floured surface or they will stick. When you are done rolling and cutting bring a large pot of salted water to boil and put them in to boil. Don’t crowd the pot too much. When they float to the surface they are done. Once cooked I remove to a bowl and toss them with butter so that they don’t stick together. In the photo below they are being served under seared top sirloin strips in a goat cheese, sun dried tomato and pesto cream sauce. Sounds like the ultimate comfort dinner with a nice green salad and a bottle of Chianti.
We made a zesty sauce with ground beef, stock, milk, cumin, chile, garlic, tomatoes and simmered it. Now we alternate layers of flour tortillas, tomato sauce and shredded cheese. Cover with foil and it’s ready for the freezer.
Since I was in a layering mood I made a Vegetable Pesto Lasagna Next. First we sauteed some vegetables, carrots, zucchini, acorn squash, mushrooms, onions and garlic
Next, I mixed up some ricotta, parmesan and mozzarella cheese with some basil, marjoram, an egg and a little fresh parsley.
Next, I made a bechamel sauce and added some pesto
and then I alternated layers of vegetables, cheese and bechamel with fresh lasagna noodles. Mmmm this is comfort food!
tomorrow we’ll be making home made gnocchi, I hope that you’ll stop by.
of this incredibly snowy weather. It’s times like this when I really don’t want to go out and grocery shop, that I regale in my stocked freezer. This week we’ll be cooking up some favourites and some new dishes. Next week my son and I are taking off to do a little skiing. I figured that we might as well take advantage of this crazy snow.
Thank you, my dear husband, for doing the shovelling.
You know the dull gray, slow lifeless weather that makes you want to curl up and knit by a roaring fire.
Well, there has been some knitting but there’s always a ton of cooking going on. My carbonnade recipe is less than authentic but it means well.
Start off with some seared blade and set is into the slow cooker
Then I added a good measure of chopped bacon and rendered it. About 2/3 of a pound.
while the bacon was sputtering away I julienned 2 onions, minced 2 cloves of garlic, added a tbsp of celery seed and readied 2 bottles of beer. I supposed it should have been Belgian beer but a trip to the beer store was not in order so it was a Danish beer called Bavaria.
I transferred the bacon to the slow cooker and added the onion mixture to the frying pan where I sauteed it for a couple of minutes until it was limp and slightly golden. I added the onion mixture to the slow cooker along with the 2 bottles of beer. I turned the slow cooker to low and went to bed. When I got up in the morning the dog and cats were going crazy in the kitchen because of the aroma.
Cheryl and I run our personal chef business from the curling club. During the day Cheryl and I are hard at work cooking yummy meals for your freezer. At night and on the weekends the restaurant is busy making delicious food for hungry curlers. Michael is our chef at the Royals. He is a very likable guy and a great cook!
He put together a little munchie table for a bunch of curlers last Friday afternoon. It was decimated seconds later. Hope you liked a little inside peek at the restaurant.
Published on March 5, 2008
in Recipes.
This is one of my favourite stews. It’s not very difficult and is just chock full of flavour. You can make it vegetarian by removing the shrimp and substituting cubed tofu. You can adjust the heat yourself by adding more or les jalapeno. Don’t bother defrosting your frozen shrimp for this recipe, it takes only minutes for the shrimp to cook, in fact if you are preparing this ahead of time don’t add the shrimp until just a couple of minutes before you are ready to serve it.
Start off with about:
2 onions, finely chopped
1 tsp thyme
1 tbsp turmeric
1 jalapeno pepper, finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic, minced
and sautee all of the aromatics together.
Then add:
2 cups of sweet potato, cubed
1 red pepper, cubed
When the vegetables have all sweated add:
2 cups or so of vegetable stock
1 can of coconut milk
and let come to a boil, toss in a handful of:
1 cup green beans, chopped
and simmer until all the vegetables are tender.
Season with salt and pepper.
Adjust consistency with a cornstarch slurry.
Stir in:
3 tbsp lime juice
a big handful of coriander leaves, finely chopped and frozen shrimp.
turn off heat on soup and stir until shrimp are opaque or slightly pink.
Yummm!
