January 28, 2011
Woohoo!! I did it! My first successful gluten free gnocchi, ever! I’ve made gnocchi in the past, thanks to the wonderful instruction found in a Marcella Hazan cookbook that my mother handed down to me. I’ve usually gotten great results with conventional gnocchi. I’ve attempted gluten free in the past too – in fact several times. Ricotta gnocchi work easily gluten free because the only flour is a mere dusting on the outside of the little dumplings. But every trial of potato gnocchi always ended in dismal failure, watching in sadness as my gnocchi dissolved away into nothingness in the simmering water. All that hard work cooking the potatoes, making the dough, rolling and cutting into those cute little gnocchi dumpling shapes, all gone to waste in about 30s of time in a pot on the stove. It was discouraging and depressing. In fact so much so that I haven’t even attempted gluten free potato gnocchi in over two years. Until now.
December 23, 2010
After our first course of Christmas dinner, the picture above was exactly what I had in mind. Fresh, thick, bright red roasted tomato soup, with strong hints of garlic, garnished with basil and parmesan. The kind that warms the soul when the rain is batting against the windows, and each step outside is a slop! slop! in the slushy puddles splattering all over your new jeans – it’s easy to catch a chill then, and a warm soup was just the cure to take away some of the grumpies of the long Wintery week.
In a desperate attempt to call back the gods of Summer to return upon us with sunshine and warm temperatures, I enthusiastically purchased just about every bio (organic) fresh vegetable I could find in the store that weekend. I found myself with a couple dozen tomatoes and thought, even if it isn’t Summer outside, maybe we can direct a few of those last rays of sunshine hidden from us by the ever threatening clouds, and have them warm our stomachs if nothing else by preparing a fresh soup. Sorry Winter Solstice, as cool as you were with an eclipse and all, I still miss my sunshine.
