Potato Gnocchi

I finally took a picture of my cooking!  Here are my gnocchi, which are pretty easy to make but are time-consuming because of shaping them.  A potato ricer makes it extremely easy to process the potatoes.  Basically, it's a larger version of a garlic mincer and has the same purpose, to extrude the potatoes through small holes.  

Ingredients:

2 lbs. (2 oz.) whole baking potatoes

1 beaten egg

2 1/4 c. flour

pinch of salt

Preparation:

1.  Boil potatoes whole with skin in salted water until cooked.

2.  Once cooked, drain potatoes and then peel them; being careful not to burn yourself.

3.  Pass potatoes through a potato ricer and into a bowl.

4.  Add flour, egg and a good pinch of salt.

5.  Mix until you have a nice pliable ball of dough.

6.  Prepare a work area and dust it with flour.

7.  Take dough, a piece at a time, and roll it out with your hands until you have rolls 3/4" in diameter.

8.  Cut tubes of dough into pieces about 1" long.

9.  With a fork, holding tines against a work surface, use your fingers to press a piece of dough gently against the fork and roll it slightly then letting it fall to the table.  (I found it helpful to hold the fork with your left hand, if you right-handed, and roll the dough against the tines)

10.  The result will be gnocchi with an indent on one side from your finger and pattern on the other side from the fork.

11.  Handle the gnocchi carefully so they don't lose their shape.  Place them on a lightly flour plates.  Keep them apart so they don't touch one another or they'll stick together.

12.  Bring a pot of water to boil and then add the gnocchi carefully a plate or two at a time.  When they float to the surface, they're ready and just remove them with a slotted spoon and set them in strainer to drain excess water.

Serve gnocchi with a pesto sauce, sage and butter sauce, ragu or tomato sauce.