One of my new years resolutions that's carried over from 2014 is to cook more from the stack of cook books I own. I have a love hate relationships with cook books. I love the pretty pictures and the idea of eating home cooked gourmet meals every day. I hate, hate, hate that so many cook books have recipes that list about 100 ingredients, at least half of which you'll never use apart from that one recipe. I'm also not a great fan of anything that takes 9 hours to make - unless it's in my slow cooker of course!
There are a few cook books that I've grown to love over the years - Marie Claire Fresh is one of my go to favourites. The Australian Women's Weekly cook books are always a trusted source - after all if it was good enough for mum... And anything by Donna Hay is usually pretty easy to make and tastes good. I'm never able to make it look as good though!
I'd bought this cook book last year but hadn't made anything from it yet. It was love at first site as there were so many of my favourite recipes in there. And like everything Donna Hay does - the pictures were beautiful - so I had to buy it. But I have to confess it's been sitting on my shelf for a very long time unopened - until yesterday.
I decided to try and make my very first gnocchi - porcini gnocchi with creamy mushroom sauce. In theory it should look like this.
I've never made gnocchi before. I guess because I thought it would be too hard and take too much time. I decided to give it a go this time because the recipe for this dish was just so short. Just 6 ingredients for the gnocchi (if you don't count salt and pepper for seasoning) and 6 for the sauce! Out of these I had most of them already (flour, salt, pepper, oil, eggs, potatoes, garlic, parmesan) which meant I really just needed to buy the mushrooms, and cream). The gnocchi took me about 15 mins to make if you don't count the hour it took to bake the potatoes. But as I was drinking a glass of wine and watching old episodes of Grand Designs I didn't count the hour. The sauce took about the same time and was pretty easy - but I wasn't sure if it was going to turn out right. Mid-way through cooking the sauce it looked a little more like this. That was just until it reduced though. Phew!
All in all it probably took about 2 hours if you count the complete time - from putting the potatoes in the oven, to dishing it up. But really about 45 mins - 1 hour if you don't count that. A little long for a week night meal - I do have a day job - but pretty damn good for a weekend. Here's how it came out.
Overall I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. My gnocchi is a little weird in shape which I'll definitely have to work on next time, but it tasted amazing and came together just right. I also had to substitute some of the mushrooms for what was available, but hubby agreed it was still delicious, so it will definitely be on repeat in our kitchen.
I've made it my mission this year to try and use more of what I have in my house - including my cook books so expect to see more adventures from my kitchen. Perhaps I need a # tag?
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