Okay, I suck (and some ricotta-leek gnocchi with fava beans) 6/4/05

So I started my blog and then I abandoned it like a baby in a trash bin. Well, that's okay because it's my fucking blog, alright? But I'm back now. At least for the moment. No promises though.

Anyway, what have I been up to lately? A lot of cooking and baking, actually. Ironically. And I've tought myself to spin. You know, wool into yarn, that sort of thing. Very relaxing, if frustrating at first. I think everyone should try it.

So I got ambitious last Sunday and decided to finally make the ricotta leek gnocchi with fava beans recipe in the May Bon Appetit. For those of you who don't know, gnocchi is basically dumplings, made from the usual ingredients, a little flour, egg, leek and ricotta cheese. In this case I blanched the leeks first so that they were tender. You mix all the ingredients together and then roll the dough into many many little balls. Then right before you throw them in a pot of boiling water, you dredge them in flour. In a separate pan you melt some butter until it foams, throw in some sage, and then allow the butter and the sage to brown. When that is finished you throw in the fresh fava beans that you have already shelled and then peeled (favas have a very thick skin around each bean that must be peeled before they are cooked. This is accomplished by slicing a slit in the thick outer skin and then popping the inner bean out of it. Not as hard as it sounds, really.) Once the favas are cooked you throw in the boiled and drained gnocchi and warm it all up together, making sure to get the butter spread over everything. It was amazing. It was so good. Buttery and sagey. And the gnocchi were neither too doughy or too liquidy. They were just right.

Really fabulous meal. Exciting. I'm going to have to make many, many batches of gnocchi.