Gnocchi encore

Sweet potato gnocchi bathed in butter.

I have been lucky to have so many visitors up here in Maine this fall - including newlyweds Anne and Roger. These two came up on a frigid weekend in November to stay with me, and we enjoyed a UMaine-UMass football game, cocktails at Woodman's, and a visit to Pat's Pizza in downtown Orono where Anne's dad ate as a student at UMaine.

One of the highlights of our weekend was making gnocchi...this time, we made them out of sweet potatoes purchased from the Orono farmer's market. We were amazed at the bounty at the market in November, and partook of the veggies, goat cheese, and vegan Whoopie pies. (As an aside, I should write a whole entry about the famous Whoopie pie, which is a dessert thought to have originated in Maine.)

Chef Anne and sous-chef Roger yucking it up!

Using the recipe posted here, we substituted mashed sweet potato for regular potato, and the result was colorful and delicious! Roger acted as sous chef to Anne, who rolled out many, many gnocchi, which I cooked in boiling water until they bobbed to the surface. As they finished cooking, I tossed them in to a pan of melted Kate's butter and sage leaves...when we served this masterpiece, we topped it with a bit of grated parmesan cheese. As Anne would say, they were delightful!

Tip: The dough was very sticky and required more flour, so a possible compromise would be to use half sweet and half regular potato.