Gno-gno-gnocchi

My bounty from last week's farmers market included lots and lots of sweet potatoes. Although sweet potatoes are simply delightful with brown sugar and pecans (or baked with marshmallows a la Mom for Thanksgiving), I was feeling adventurous, so I decided to try my hand at making my own sweet potato-cinnamon gnocchi in a maple brown butter sauce for a dinner party.

Mmmm.... I used Giada De Laurentiis's recipe. A couple words of advice: she doesn't tell you this, but you need to drain your ricotta for at least 3 hours before you mix it in with the mashed sweet potatoes. Otherwise your dough will be goopy. I read the reviews first, so I fortunately did not have goopy dough, and I wouldn't want you to either! Don't have cheesecloth? Me neither. Use some good old paper towel.

Gnocchi making requires some serious advance planning, which is usually not a strength of mine. I can't tell you how many times I've gotten all my ingredients together an hour before people are coming over, only to read the words "soak overnight" or "let chill for at least six hours." Sigh. But this time, I roasted the sweet potatoes for an hour the night before and drained the ricotta overnight. The afternoon of the party, I made my dough, rolled it out, and cut it into pretty little gnocchi. See? I was so hard at work my hands are a BLUR.The maple brown butter sauce was absolutely divine. I make brown butter sauce with fried sage fairly often, but the maple was a nice touch. I was worried that between the sweet potato, the cinnamon, and the maple syrup, the dish would be too sweet, but the fried sage was a great counterpoint.I wasn't so sure what to pair with this dish. I knew I wanted to drink a red, because guess what, it was COLD again. So I thought about what sorts of tastes, food-wise, go well with sweet potatoes. Cranberry, nuts, etc. This Bear Boat Pinot Noir from California's Russian River Valleyfit the bill perfectly. At $22, it was a little more expensive than I usually go for, but it had great flavor. Dried fruits, a little spice, a little smoke.For dessert, some whipped ricotta with honey and vanilla and mixed berries.
Whew! Roomie and I just took a two hour backbending workshop at my yoga studio. I've got to rest a bit before I decide what to do with the brussels sprouts (told you I like maligned vegetables) and mustard greens I got this morning!