Gnocchi - Grandma Tatoes

My mother first made these treats for my kids when they were toddlers, hence the name grandma tatoes. They have always loved them. In fact, one of the kids will only eat the gnocchi with red sauce. No noodles for him. For years, I was under the impression that its time consuming to make them from stratch, so I never attempted to make them. We always waited for grandma to show and make them. But, luckily, I finally decided to make them. So, now the gnocchi is a staple in our repetoire of food. The nice thing about gnocchi is that they freeze well and so you can make tons and have them any time. I guarantee you that if you take the time to make them, anything store bought will pale in comparison to the rich, potatoey flavor. The truth is that they do not take alot of time to make.

INGREDIENTS

• 2.5 lbs of yukon gold potatoes which should be about 6 medium sized potatoes. If the potatoes are too large, then they will take a long time to steam cook. Also, if they are too small, it will be a chore to peel them, once they are cooked.
• 2-2.5 cups of flour
• 2 tsp of salt
• large steamer pan. The pan must be large enough to hold sufficient amount of water to steam the potatoes for about 1 hour or until done
• potato ricer
• small hand strainer

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Thoroughly scrub and wash the potatoes.
2. Place them in the steamer pan and fill the steamer to about 1/2 full. You might have to add water, half way through the steam process. Turn the heat on high and steam the potatoes. It is really important to steam the potatoes. If you boiled the potatoes, they can become water logged and it will be hard to make the potato dough. Check about 45 minutes into the steam process to see if the potatoes are done. Use a knife and gently push it into the potato, if the knife goes in without any resistance, the potatoes are ready. You want the potatoes to be thoroughly steam cooked, but not over done. It will probably take about an hour to steam the potatoes.
3. Once the potatoes are done cooking, turn the heat off and remove the steamer from the stove.
4. While the potatoes are still hot, use a fork to hold the potato and peel the skin. The skin should peel easily. Peel all the potatoes. Be careful, the potato needs to still be warm for the next steps, so they need to be peeled while hot.
   
5. Using the potato ricer, press the potato thorough the ricer. If the potato is too large, cut in half and press thorough.
6. Add 2 cups of flour and mix it thoroughly with the riced potato.
7. Kneed with your hands until it forms into a "dough" ball. If it is still too sticky, add a little more flour and continue to kneed until it becomes a ball.
8. Using the hand strainer, lightly flour your kneeding surface.
9. Using a knife, cut about 1/4 of the dough, place on the kneeding surface. Lightly flour the dough.
   
10. Roll dough out using your hand into a long tube, the diameter of about 1 inch.
11. Using a sharp knife, cut the tube into bite size pieces and set them aside on a floured sheet. Continue until all the dough has been rolled out and cut.
12. Using a 6-8 qt pot, bring water to boil. Carefully add about 10-12 dumplings. When the dumplings rise to the top of the pan, they are cooked. Using a hand colander, remove the gnocchi from the water and place them on a wire rack. Continue until all the gnocchi are cooked.
13. Serve with red sauce or anyway you would serve pasta.
14. For any leftovers, soft freeze them in single rows on the wire rack. When they are soft frozen, you can put them between sheets of wax paper and freeze them completely. The key to freeze these is to make sure they are frozen individually that way, you can defrost them easily and they won't become a big clump when you defrost them.

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