Pesto Gnocchi

I love Italian food, especially pasta. Usually I just buy dried pasta when making it at home, but I had a Sunday free and thought I'd try something different. I used Mario Battali's gnocchi recipe as a base. The pesto sauce is actually one we made at the end of the summer with our remaining basil. This is the last of it from the freezer. Pesto freezes wonderfully!

Gnocchi
3 pounds russet potatoes (I used Yukon Gold, because it's what I had)
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 egg, extra large
1 pinch salt

Boil the whole potatoes until they are soft (about 45 minutes). While still warm, peel and pass through vegetable mill onto clean pasta board - I don't have a vegetable mill, so I just mashed them with a fork to get rid of lumps.

Set 6 quarts of water to boil in a large spaghetti pot. Set up ice bath with 6 cups ice and 6 cups water near boiling water.

Make well in center of potatoes and sprinkle all over with flour, using all the flour. Place egg and salt in center of well and using a fork, stir into flour and potatoes, just like making normal pasta. Once egg is mixed in, bring dough together, kneading gently until a ball is formed. Knead gently another 4 minutes until ball is dry to touch. I attempted to do this on a cutting board, but my cutting board was not big enough, so next time I'll just do it directly on a clean counter top.

Roll a baseball-size ball of dough into 3/4-inch diameter dowels and cut dowels into 1-inch long pieces. Flick pieces off of fork until dowel is finished. Drop these pieces into boiling water and cook until they float (about 1 minute). Meanwhile, continue with remaining dough, forming dowels, cutting into 1-inch pieces and flicking off of fork. As gnocchi float to top of boiling water, remove them to ice bath. Continue until all have been cooled off. Let sit several minutes in bath and drain from ice and water. Toss with pasta sauce of choice.

Pesto
I don't remember which pesto recipe we used, since this has been the freezer for a bit.  Next time I make fresh pesto, I'll be sure to post the recipe.

This was delicious!  I think I made the gnocchi a little too big, so next time I will make smaller gnocchi. I also think that it would be better to let the gnocchi stay in the boiling water for a few extra seconds once they start to float, I think they were just a tad under cooked.

This made a ton, so I took the extras that we didn't eat and froze them on a cookie sheet for about 15 minutes and then stuck them in a Ziploc bag for a future, easy meal.