Garlic Butter Gnocchi

Soft fluffy pillows of warm potato gnocchi tossed in a garlic butter sauce and topped with Parmesan cheese.

This was one of my first couple of times making homemade gnocchi.  I used a simple sauce so I could really taste the flavor of the gnocchi.   It's incredibly quick and delicious, but it's also filling enough for an entree (maybe with a side salad).

I used a simple sauce so I could really taste the flavor of the gnocchi. [Tweet this]

I love garlic.  It's probably my favorite ingredient and I add it to just about everything (except sweets...but I'll figure out a recipe someday ;)).  Have no fear of garlic it not only keeps vampires away it's healthy in many other ways too; just google it.  I minced up a bunch of garlic for this recipe, but you can use more or less depending on your taste preferences.  The trick is to just soften the garlic when cooking it.  You don't want to brown or burn it just heat it enough to flavor the butter and cook off that raw garlic bite.

Garlic not only keeps vampires away it's healthy in many other ways too. [Tweet this]

Garlic Butter Gnocchi

Ingredients:

Potato Gnocchi
2 Tbsp butter
2 Tbsp olive oil
1/4 cup minced garlic
Fresh cracked pepper
Parmesan cheese

Bring about 4-5 quarts of lightly salted water to a boil in a large stockpot.

Meanwhile, melt the butter over medium heat in a large saucepan.  add the olive oil and garlic.  Gently cook and stir the garlic until it's fragrant and tender.  Remove from the heat.

Place frozen or fresh gnocchi in the boiling water and let boil until it floats.  Fish the floating gnocchi out of the water with a slotted spoon or spider (skimmer) and drop into the garlic butter.  Stir and toss until the gnocchi is coated with the oil.

You can optionally turn the heat back on and cook the gnocchi in the sauce for a little just don't burn the garlic.

Place the gnocchi in bowls and top with fresh cracked pepper and Parmesan.

Makes about 2 servings depending on how much gnocchi you use.  Serve alongside a salad if you like.

Enjoy.

Don't forget to check out How to Make Potato Gnocchi:

Check out some of my pasta recipes (I know gnocchi isn't technically pasta but some of these sauces might be great with gnocchi too):

Clam Linguine    -------------------------

Mushroom Spinach Tomato Pasta

Cheesy Chicken     Garlic Penne      --------------

Very Veggie             Pasta         ----------

Spinach Pasta Bake

Pasta Primavera    --

Shrimp Scampi           --

Blue Cheese Alfredo

Linked to:  2 Cup, Treasure box, Lou Lou Girls, Tasty, Whimsy, Tickle My Tastebuds, Cook Craft Share, Full Plate, Freedom, Foodie Friends, Best of the Weekend, Show Off, Pretty Pintastic

Follow Joy Bee's board Joybee Whats for Dinner blog posts on Pinterest.

Read more ...

How to Make Potato Gnocchi

A simple tutorial and recipe for how to make potato gnocchi (potato dumplings).

Update:  3/20/16 pin-able image and minor editing

Gnocchi are delicious soft dumplings made of flour, eggs, and potatoes.  I'm focusing on potato gnocchi in this post but apparently they can also be made with ricotta, butternut squash, or other similar ingredients.

Gnocchi are delicious soft dumplings made of flour, eggs, and potatoes. [Tweet this]

Everything I know about potato gnocchi I learned from Italian Food Forever's How to make Potato Gnocchi.  It's a great step by step tutorial all about how to make gnocchi.  The main points I took away from this post were:  it's easier than most people think, bake instead of boil your potatoes, and don't use too much flour.  With these tips, I made potato gnocchi.  I loved it and so did my husband it was simple, inexpensive, and delicious.  There are many variations of gnocchi but for my first time, I kept it simple.  It turned out great so I'll definitely experiment with adding herbs and spices in the future and maybe even other main ingredients.  I want to try ricotta gnocchi some time too, but I think it's a good idea to start basic and get this recipe down before I start to experiment.

It's easier than you think, bake don't boil potatoes, & easy on the flour. [Tweet this]

Potato Gnocchi

Ingredients:

4 russet potatoes (about 2 cups of potato insides)
1 egg
1-1 1/2 cup(s) all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt

Start with baked potatoes and scrape out the insides.  Keep the potato skins for Loaded Baked Potato Skins.  You want about 2 cups of potato insides.

Squeeze the potato through your fingers, use a potato ricer, a fork, or a masher to break up the potato as finely as you can get it.

Place the potato mash in a medium bowl, add the salt, egg, and 1 cup of flour.  Stir briefly to combine then turn out onto a lightly floured surface.

Knead gently by hand adding the rest of the flour as needed until ingredients just come together and you have a smooth dough.  Don't overwork the dough and don't add too much flour.

Cut the dough in half (or more) and roll each half into a thick rope about the thickness of a thumb.  Thicker is fine you'll just have bigger gnocchi and if you get too thin the rope will break (so you will easily know if you are getting too thin).  Short ropes are easier to roll than long ropes but roll however you're comfortable.

Cut the rope into segments about the same size as the thickness of the rope.  The gnocchi are fine like this, but you can also indent them with your thumb against the tines of a fork to dimple and give them texture (great for holding sauce).

At this point, you can refrigerate the gnocchi until ready to cook, or I find it easier to freeze them (so they are more solid).  I use the gnocchi the same day I make them so I don't know how well they keep.

Drop the prepared gnocchi into boiling, lightly salted water and boil until they float.  Remove from the water and sauce as desired.  A simple garlic butter sauce is what I made (I'll post this next time) but a simple (tomato based) pasta sauce would be great, or a pesto, or a white wine sauce.

Makes about 2 servings (maybe more if you scrape out more potato insides or have really big potatoes)

Experiment and enjoy.

Other recipes mentioned in this post:

How to Make a Great Baked Potato	Loaded Baked Potato Skins	Simple Pasta Sauce  -----------------
White Wine Sauce and Shrimp Scampi	Spinach Pistachio Pesto

Linked to:  2 Cup, Treasure Box, Teach Me, LouLou Girls, Tickle My Tastebuds, Tasty Tues, Full Plate, Cook Craft Share, Freedom, FoodieFriends

Follow Joy Bee's board Joybee Whats for Dinner blog posts on Pinterest.

Read more ...

How to Make a Great Baked Potato

Baked potatoes are a simple and tasty side to any meal.  They can even be a great meal all on there own.  

I wasn't always a big fan of baked potatoes.  When I had them I would load them with 'fixings' and only eat the insides.  Everyone would tell me that the skin had the most nutrients in it, but it never tasted good.  However, when at a restaurant I would love the baked potatoes with salty, chewy skin and I would gobble up the whole thing.  For the longest time I could not duplicate this at home until, finally, I found the secret (I searched how to bake a potato online and found great instructions). Here are the steps I follow to make a great baked potato.

First it is important to thoroughly rinse and scrub your russet potato.  With these simple steps the potato skin turns out delicious and you won't want to waste it.

Then you will pierce the potato all over with a sharp knife or a fork (about 10 times, a couple of centimeters deep).  I use a sharp knife just because it is easier for me to insert and remove.

Next pour about 1 Tbsp of olive oil over the potato and rub/massage the oil all over the potato.

Sprinkle on about 1 tsp coarse sea salt or kosher salt and rub it in.  Not all of the salt and oil will adhere to the potato but some of it should. You can adjust the oil and salt to suit your tastes.

Bake in a 350 degree oven (right on the rack) for 45 minutes to 1 hour, until soft.

Depending on the size of the potato it may take longer (you can bake sweet potatoes the same way).  I usually only bake 2 potatoes so I use a toaster oven, but I think that baking is very important.  I know a microwave is quick, but once you try a potato this way you won't want to go back.  The skin is lightly salty and has a great texture.  I kind of want to try this, sometime, with butter instead of oil, I don't know how it would turn out but I am curious.

Enjoy.

Other posts with baked potatoes:  Loaded Potato Skins, Herb Roasted Pork Tenderloin (baked sweet potato), Twice Baked Potatoes

Original post 12/24/12 (50 views and 2 pins) re-posted with new pictures and minor editing.

Linked to:  2 Cup, Teach Me, Lou Lou Girls, Tasty, Whimsy, Full Plate, Cook Craft Share, Foodie Friends, Pretty Pintastic,Best of the Weekend, Snickerdoodle


Follow Joy Bee's board Joybee Whats for Dinner blog posts on Pinterest.

Read more ...

Recipe Remake: Twice Baked Potato

A remake of my original Twice Baked Potato with some slight differences.

Yum.  Twice baked potatoes are so tasty.  If you've never had one you just don't know what you are missing.  One weekend I was trying to think of an idea for lunch for my husband and myself and I thought twice baked potatoes would be great (and they were).  This time I had normal sized potatoes so I used one each.  They made for one filling lunch.  I don't think these are very healthy but they sure were good.  Warning:  do not drive or operate heavy machinery for 1 hour after eating.  My husband and I were so full and happy that we passed out (napped) for about an hour immediately after eating.  

Twice Baked Potatoes

Ingredients:

2 baked potatoes
3 strips crispy bacon, chopped
1/4 cup butter or olive oil
1-2 hand fulls cheese
1/4-1/2 cup green onion slices

Take two baked potatoes (see the tutorial on How to Make a Great Baked Potato) and cut off a small strip along the top.  Scoop out the insides of the potato leaving about a 1/4 inch thick shell.

In a bowl mix the potato insides, bacon, butter, cheese and green onions.  Mix until thouroughly combined and the potato is slightly moistened.

Load the potato mixture back inside the potato shells, packing it in as best as you can, it will mound out of the shell, but you should be able to get it all back in.

Put the top back on (I thought about leaving the top off, but it helps keep the filling in and after baking it is crispy and delicious) and bake for about 30 minutes at 350F.  Enjoy.

Follow Joy Bee's board Joybee Whats for Dinner blog posts on Pinterest.

Read more ...

Bacon Wrapped Potato Wedges

A delicious football snack made with soft potato wedges wrapped with crispy bacon.

 

Best football snack ever, or at least (that I've made) so far.  I think I've mentioned that I love bacon, these little wedges are awesome.  I parboiled small potato wedges, tossed them in oil and spices, wrapped with raw bacon and baked until the bacon became crispy.  The bacon wrapping part took the most time, but it was well worth it, these were a huge hit.  The potato was soft and warm while the bacon was nice and crisp, a great combination.  And it used some of the 20 pound bag of potatoes we got around Thanksgiving (we have made big pots of mashed potatoes twice, baked potatoes a few times, scalloped potatoes and more. We are down to only 2 potatoes now, yay.)

Bacon Wrapped Potato Wedges

Ingredients:

2-3 large potatoes
1 lb bacon (about 1 1/2 lbs)
salt
pepper
garlic powder
olive oil

Cut the potatoes into small wedges.  (I had huge potatoes so I cut them in half crosswise then each half into 8 pieces lengthwise, maybe more for some of the bigger pieces and I left the peel on.)  Then, boil the potatoes for just a few minutes until barely soft (about 2-3 minutes or less depending on the size of your pieces).

When the potatoes finish boiling, drain immediately and rinse with cold water.  Toss the wedges in spices and olive oil (the oil is only to help the spices stick to the potatoes).  Wrap each wedge with 1/2 slice of bacon, secure with toothpick (the toothpicks also make picking up and eating easier) and place on a baking sheet.

Bake in a 425F oven for 20 minutes, then broil for about 5-10 minutes (keep watch on the wedges during broiling you want them to get browned but not burn).  Carefully remove the wedges from the pan an place on a napkin to absorb some grease and cool.  Serve with ranch or sour cream for dipping.  Makes 32-48 wedges (you are only limited by how many potatoes you cut and how much bacon you have).  

These were awesome, I prepared 2 pans of 24 wedges but we did not have as many people for the game as we thought, so I only baked 1 pan.  I put the second pan in the freezer and then bagged the wedges once frozen.  I will try baking these from frozen sometime.  Everybody loved them.

*update:  I thawed the frozen wedges overnight and then baked them as above.  They were still great.

Enjoy.

Linked to:  Mums Make Lists

Read more ...

Twice Baked Potato

A great side to any meal or even a meal all its own, my twice baked potatoes are everything I love about a loaded baked potato and more.

Not too long ago my husband purchased a 20 pound bag of potatoes at Costco.  It's only the two of us so we have potatoes taking over our kitchen.  I have been gradually using them and trying to think of new and exciting ways to eat them.  Here is my latest potato creation.

Twice baked potatoes are a simple recipe, just start with a baked potato, scoop out the insides, mix the insides with your favorite potato toppings, put it back together and bake it a second time.

Ingredients:

1 very large potato (our potatoes are ridiculously big, us can use 2 normal potatoes)
4 strips bacon, cooked and crumbled
1/4 cup ranch dressing
1/2 cup cheddar cheese
1/4 cup chopped green onions

Bake the potato, and let it cool enough to handle.  Then cut it in half (if using smaller potatoes only cut off the top) and scoop out the insides.

Mix the potato insides with the rest of the ingredients, adding salt and pepper if you want.  I don't think it needs any salt with the cheese and dressing, but this is a personal preference.  When the ingredients are mixed well stuff the mixture back into the potato shells.

Bake the stuffed potato halves at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes until cheese is melting and the tops are browned.  This recipe serves 2.

Twice baked potatoes are a fun and different way to enjoy the usual baked potato.  You can always us your own favorite ingredients to make the potato your own.  I served this with a grilled cheese sandwich and some broccoli to round out the meal.  Enjoy

Read more ...