Step by Step Sweet Potato Gnocchi

Hello and welcome to November, aka Vegan Month of Food and the time when vegan bloggers unite in a fearsome quest to blog everyday for the whole month. This is def the time to bookmark some recipes and ideas from the vegan blog-o-sphere because they will be flying at you faster than you can handle all month long!

So, starting us off on this end is my (simple as humanly possible) recipe for sweet potato gnocchi, in pictures. Its such a good way to use up sweet potatoes if they're abundant in your area, and they freeze perfectly. Best of all, they are vegan, which you can't always say for the gnocchi you find at restaurants or in your grocer's freezer. The only reason people don't eat them everyday is because they're scared, I guess, so now you don't have to be intimidated: if you can make a snowman with play dough you can do this!

Sweet Potato Gnocchi
*Serves 1-2 so def double or triple for bigger groups.

1. Either bake or microwave one large sweet potato until easily piercable with a fork, then peel and either mash it or force it through a potato ricer. (I prefer the latter.) Let it sit and cool for as long as it takes to reach room temp.
2. When its finally cool, put the mound of sweet potato onto a lightly floured surface, and add in approx. 3/4 of a cup of all-purpose flour and a pinch of salt. (I use about this much flour per cooked potato, but it can be much more or less depending on humidity, potato size or juiciness, and your horoscope sign.) Using your hands, knead flour into potato for about ten minutes, or until you have a smooth and basically dry dough. You want it to be just dry enough to roll a piece between your fingers without it sticking to your hands- the goal is to use as little flour as possible to reach this consistency.
4.) Now that you have your dough ball, pinch off a palm full of the dough at a time and, using your fingertips, roll it into a log as fat as your thumb, give or take. Repeat for the rest of the dough until you have a bunch of little logs.

5.) Using a sharp knife, slice each log into small rectangles. (If its really hot/humid where you are live you might want to refrigerate the logs first to make this easier on yourself.)

6.) Finally, roll each little log off the tip of a fork to create tiny indentations to hold sauce and just to be cute. No one ever died from eating gnocchi without these little lines, but I recommend it. :)
7.) You are now ready to either freeze or cook! If freezing, freeze separately on a cutting board or parchment-paper lined cookie sheet, then consolidate into a freezer bag. (So they don't stick together.) If cooking, add gnocchi into boiling salted water and cook about 5 minutes, or until floating. You can also fry them in oil or margarine along with onions, garlic and shallots. Its all tasty.


Enjoy!

song of the day: Arcade Fire- We Used to Wait