Wednesday, June 20, 2007

potato, banana, potato

Although I've made a few bits and pieces over the past couple of days I'm saving up to blog the whole 'collection', if you will, over next week.
So, to tide you over, here's some Happy Culinary Events from the past few days.


First up, organic black potatoes. Look at the bright purple juice on the knife! My mum had bought them once before from the gourmet grocers behind my work. I was making a beef and mushroom stew, with french bread 'croutons' on top. Needed to bulk up the stew, but didn't want another pale carb. These fit the bill nicely, and (to my surprise, as I'd had them baked before) they imparted this really unusual smoky scent to the stew.


Next up, in my erratic attempt to consume less, I went to make banana bread rather than throw out some old bananas. They became muffins, because I don't own a loaf tin. And I'm really very pleased how they turned out, because I fudged the measurements a bit, and didn't have any cinnamon, and replaced the self-raising flour with flour + baking powder. They'd be better with walnuts in, though.


And finally, I made gnocchi! The moment when they actually rose to the surface in the boiling water was a true joy. I had fears of gluey masses, or disintegrating powders. They were a little bland, but for my first attempt at a potato-dumpling-dough they were certainly quite edible.

10 comments:

BEESTLYproducts said...

wow! you're becoming quite the foodie. homemade gnocchi! it must be amazing.

Anonymous said...

Oh I LOVE gnocchi, I've never tried to make it. You know, the best gnocchi I've had was on a quantas plane, lol. I have never come across these black potatoes, good eh? Interesting.

Thanks for the suggestions for es! I have actually already ordered her some Laura Cameron and Aunty cookie fabrics (the knitters one, have you seen it!?), and today I ordered a little bit of Jo Sharp blue tweedy niceness, that was really helpful because for some reason I thought that was a UK yarn, but I was getting confused with Rowan. =P Thanks!

Christina said...

Interesting! I've never even heard of black potatoes before. And I thought I knew everything...

Ha!

Looking forward to seeing "the collection"!

Anonymous said...

my mom & sister learned a new and supposedly very yummy and easy gnocchi recipe in italy. i'll have to pass it on once i get it.

Elizabeth said...

Everything looks great- I've always wanted to make gnocchi, and I've heard it's not hard, just intimidating. I've just finished making some cranberry-bran muffins, also fudging the recipe a bit.

lupinbunny said...

No, actually, the gnocchi was really easy. Promise. It's just mashed potato, and you add flour till you get a nice dough (and maybe some more salt next than I did ;) ). Aside from the time in boiling whole potatoes, it's honestly so easy it could be a midweek meal.

Clementine said...

yum, i <3 home made gnocchi.

i made sweet potato gnocchi last night, which i'd never done before. you'd think it would be the same recipe, right? well, i did. it's NOT.

maybe i did something wrong, but the mash was so soft that i had to add way too much flour to get it to form dough, and therefore it was like eating glue. i can honestly say that is the first meal i have ever made that was totally inedible. the shame!

knitconvict said...

Well done on the gnocchi. My one and only attempt ended up a saucepanful of watery, floury mashed spud. The little buggers fell apart straight away!

lupinbunny said...

That means not enough flour, KnitConvict ;) I did my net research well before embarking on this adventure.

Pity, Clementine. because sweet potato gnocchi was next on my list, and now you've scared me...

Anonymous said...

Hi Clare,

Homemade gnocchi - very impressed! I used to get really nice gnocchi in Argentina, but have not really tried it since getting back to the UK. I do really want to learn to make pasta though, that would be very cool!