Gnocchi, Italian Comfort Food

 Gnocchi are light, little pillows of potato dumpling goodness. Like the dumplings of so many international recipes, they are comfort food. Actually comfort is the reason, according to legend, that the dumpling was invented. One story tells of Zhang Zhongjing, a Chinese medical practitioner who wrapped dough around a meat filling, and added it to soup to provide relief from frostbite and illness to his villagers. The Italians track their gnocchi to the 1500’s.  Whether you believe the Italians or the Chinese or for that matter the Romans, dumplings, have been around for a very long time. I was quite surprised to discovered just how many countries have dumplings in their history of recipes.
There is one word that you will find repeated throughout this recipe. That’s ‘gently’. Overworking, just like overcooking will create hard little nuggets. You want the dough to just come together and be slightly sticky. Traditional Gnocchi have ridges, sometimes made over the tines of a fork or rolled over a special wooden mold. I made these simply, as it can be enough of a challenge making a tender Gnocchi. If you want to go for the gusto, there are lots of YouTube videos on how to do it.
When it comes to the potatoes for Gnocchi, Yukon Gold are the best choice, but in a pinch a Russets are the next best. Yukon Golds are a higher starch potato, prized for creamy mashed potatoes. Exactly what you want to create a beautiful Gnocchi.

Ingredients:

Dough:
  • 1 lb. Yukon Gold potatoes
  • 3/4 cup flour
  • 1 egg
  • 1 tsp salt
Sauce:
  • 3 lg tomatoes
  • 1 egg
  • 1 white onion
  • 1 lg clove garlic
  • 2 tbsp fresh oregano
  • 1/4 cup white wine
  • 1/4 cup milk
  • 1 tbsp butter
  • 2 tbsp veg oil
  • Salt & pepper to taste
  • Grated cheese

Method:

Gnocchi:

  1. Cook the Yukon Gold potatoes, skins on, either by steaming or gently in microwave.
  2. Set the potatoes aside to cool, skins on.
  3. Peel and gently crumble the potatoes with a fork. Resist the temptation to get out the masher.
  4. In a separate bowl combine salt and flour.
  5. With fork, beat egg and gently combine with potatoes.
  6. Sprinkle the flour mixture over the potato mixture. You can mound the potato and flour on a working surface and add the egg to that, but I find it easier to mix it in a bowl.
  7. Using your fingers of one hand gently swirl around to combine flour and potato. The mixture will come together to form a light ball. Still with one hand gather all the bits and with a few gentle turns, knead the mixture.
  8. Divide dough into 4 sections. Cover bowl and set aside.
  9. Bring a pot of water to gentle boil.
  10. While you are waiting for the water to boil start the sauce.
  11. Flour a work surface lightly.
  12. Roll each of the sections into a long rope, roughly 3/4″ thick.
  13. Slice rope into pieces 3/4″ long.
  14. Boil all the gnocchi from each rope section separately.
  15. As soon as the gnocchi float they are cooked.
  16. Lift with a slotted spoon and set aside.
Sauce:
  1. Finely dice onion and mince garlic.
  2. Remove the seeds from the tomatoes. I used basic beefsteak tomatoes because that’s what I happened to have. Ideally plum tomatoes, such as Roma, are best for pasta sauces.
  3. Stem and mince fresh oregano.
  4. Pulse the tomatoes in a food processor, adding the oregano leaves i
  5. n the last few seconds. Do not puree.
  6. Heat a saute pan on fairly high heat and add the prepared onion and garlic.
  7. As the onion starts to brown lightly, reduce the heat to medium.
  8. When the onion and garlic are tender add the tomato mixture. Then add the wine, butter, and milk.
  9. Simmer until sauce reduces. Salt and pepper to taste.
  10. Add the gnocchi to the tomato sauce. Toss and serve immediately topped with grated cheese.

Eggs and Cress

adding cress to scrambled eggs
Eggs and cress, these two just seem to be made for each other. Certainly the British feel so with their love of watercress on egg salad sandwiches for tea time. These curly cress are different that watercress. Watercress have a wide round leave and a more woody stem so what you find these days are baby watercress. Curly cress have a slender pointed leaf. They are a very pretty microgreen, whether served in food or sprinkled on top.
I think you can start the day beautifully  with lovely, soft eggs, scrambled and lightly tossed with beautiful, peppery curly cress microgreens. Who needs something with hollandaise sauce just to make a fancy breakfast dish? Of course a great bread, with or without gluten. For this breakfast I used a delicate kolach bread, but any bread with a slightly sweet, soft texture will make a tender toast. I buy our kolach from Robert and our eggs from Brenda. Both at thecurly cress microgreens Deville Market at North Cooking Lake.
I love La Vache qui Rit from Fromageries Bel.  It’s just about my favorite cream cheese. I’m also passionate about the combination of generous folds of delicate cold smoked salmon with scrambled eggs. My favorite is J. Willy Krauch & Sons smokehouse salmon, if you can find them. It’s a treat I enjoy any time I am down east. Going to the smokehouse is a guilty pleasure and well worth the drive, if you are taking a Maritime holiday. But I digress. If you aren’t a fish fan, a soft and mild prosciutto is also equal to the task.
Farm fresh country eggs are just about essential for a good scramble, as far as I’m concerned. Fresh eggs from a local coop almost always means the chickens were fed a better diet, frequently allowed to scratch for a living and are a happier chicken. All to give us eggs with a beautiful, upright yolk, a firm shell and just an all round better tasting, never mind more nutritious breakfast.
Of course we respect those eggs by cooking them over gentle heat, in butter, not oil, after having whipped them to fluffy perfection. Adding water to the eggs, not milk when whipping makes for a fluffy scrambled egg. The water will steam during the cooking process. The perfect scramble is pushed around the pan while cooking to keep it tender and soft, and still a bit runny. It shouldn’t take more than 2 minutes, making this a breakfast that doesn’t have to wait for the weekend. Note the addition of a tsp of water to the eggs. A lot of people add milk to scrambled eggs, but milk makes a tougher egg.
Ingredients per person:
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1 tsp of water
  • 1 tbsp butter
  • 2 slices smoked salmon
  • 2 pinches of Curly Cress
  • 1 triangle of La Vache qui Rit
  • 1 slice kolach bread
  • Salt and Pepper to taste

Method:

  1. Whisk together eggs with the bit of water until light and fluffy.
  2. Heat a saute or fry pan over barely medium heat. Melt the butter in the pan.
  3. Make your toast, spreading with the cream cheese. Fold your salmon and place on the toast so you can see the edges of salmon draping over the toast. Eating is all about appearance, so it’s worth the extra couple seconds to make the first meal of your day pretty.
  4. Pour the eggs into the heated pan. Immediately and gently push around in the pan with a firm silicone spatula, don’t stir. The idea is to have nice, full, fluffy eggs. That requires a gentle touch. As soon as the eggs are showing signs of starting to set, sprinkle with the cress.
  5. Eggs should be just done, still having a slight creaminess to them. That will take barely 2 minutes.
  6. Mound the eggs onto the prepped toast and sprinkle with salt and pepper, as desired.
  7. Mmm, now that’s breakfast.

Learning to Grow Hydroponic Strawberries

I love strawberries. I don’t know too many people who don’t.  Even people allergic to strawberries find themselves inexplicably drawn to them. But I don’t love those little red triangles that we get in the grocery store from Sep to Apr that come from somewhere way south of us. I know, it’s consumerism at it’s worst to want something so very much out of season, but I do.

But let’s back up the story. I grow hops, indoors, in special buckets. It’s in a system called hydroponics. Like those guys growing the funny weed that has been the topic of news for some time now. Well I have been reading about growers who been working out the kinks and creating a variety of hydroponic systems for growing these beloved little berries. I looked at my little hydroponic hops farm and realized I have unused real estate under those big plants. They take the same level of light and the same water and nutrient levels as strawberries. And there it was, the beginnings of an idea.

I phoned wonderful Apache Seeds and asked about starter stock for strawberries. These are the same starter plants farmers use to grow in the fields, tiny little runners, tied in bundles, virtually bare root. Sure enough they could get them for me. I had previously brought in runners from my backyard plants, and you could, if you wanted to carefully wash the roots. I have experienced first hand, the time it seems to take for them to acclimatize to the hydroponic system. These little starter stock plants have settled right in. In fact within a month of being planted they are already rewarding me with blossoms.

Why Hydroponics?

By now you are probably asking why hydroponics? Why not plop the little things in soil and let them do their thing? Some people argue that plants grown in soil taste better and maybe, to some, they do. The internet is full of arguments for both sides, but we’ve come a long way from the basic fertilizers and florescent lights.  Much study has been done on the nutritive values of hydroponic plants, grown under lights. Certainly they have to taste better than those grocery store red things that have traveled thousands of kilometers to get to us. For me and many other indoor farmers, hydroponics is a clean way to grow. I can create a wonderful environment for plants grow in: the lights overhead; the medium in which they are grown;  the chemistry of water; and the nutrients they receive. I am learning about the use of biological controls to balance insect predators and what to do to minimize problems  like powdery mildew. Research has made it easier for my green thumb to work. All that being said, and science aside there is something magical about coming into the farm in the morning and seeing the first buds turning into blossoms. Especially in an Alberta winter. I can’t wait for a few more to open up so I can wield a paint brush and start pollinating.

Could you do this? It’s sounds complicated. Well, yes and no. There is a lot to learn and after asking a bunch of questions, you may decide that soil is the way for you. Just know that if you really want to grow great food indoors, there is still a learning curve, but the results are so worth it. Your local hydroponic shop can set you up with just about everything you need, if you want to grow hydroponically and a good garden center has experts to help with soil based farming. There is lots of great information online about growing both ways. I’ve learned a lot, reading and taking courses. There are kits you can purchase with everything you need to start with a few herbs, greens or microgreens before you started something more complicated, like strawberries, but certainly you could.

The Basics of Hydroponics – Water

Strawberries grown indoors require water with a pH of 5.3 to 6.5. You’ve probably not thought of testing the pH of your water before you water your plants. It might surprise you to know that our Edmonton city water rates at the 8.5 mark, which makes it more alkaline, what they call hard water. It’s that residue in your tea kettle and around the edge of your bathtub. A pH of 7 is considered to be neutral. If you have ever struggled to grow anything in your backyard, someone from a garden center may have suggested that you get your soil tested for pH. For your houseplants 5.5 to 6.5 is ideal, unless you have something that requires a more acidic soil. There are all kinds of amendments you can add to garden soil to change the acidity, but in hydroponics, a product called pH Down and a simple test kit is all you need. Even your houseplants would benefit from water that is adjusted for pH.

Along with higher pH, what comes from your tap has chlorine and sometimes chloramine in it. Anyone with a fish tank knows about the importance of treating for that. Have you ever collected rainwater for your plants, or noticed how green your lawn is from the rain compared to watering it? Chlorine and sometimes the disinfectant chloramine are added to our drinking water to keep it safe. The problem with those two chemicals for watering your plants, particularly in hydroponics is the removal of any beneficial fungi and bacteria which help plants take up nutrients. You can remove chlorine by allowing it to sit out in the sun for 24 hours, but chloramine has to be removed by filtering or chemically.  Campden tablets will remove the chlorine and chloramine from your water, but they also increase the sodium levels. Before I lose you to all the science, if you want to grow better plants, and especially if you are thinking hydroponics, find yourself a good shop and ask about your options. If you are like me and just have to do the research, check out this article from High Times.

Growing Media and Containers

Back to my strawberries. They are growing well in their Bato or Dutch Buckets, wedged in between the hops. Bato Buckets are a frequently used system for growing a variety of  tall or vining plants such as: tomatoes; cucumbers; or peppers. To learn more about setting up a Bato Bucket system, check out this great article from Upstart University.

So far I have used perlite as the growing media, especially for the hops as it drains very well. The side effect of perlite is the dust. You need a mask to work with it. There are other options but you need to consider drainage. Each media has a system for which it is ideally suited. Perlite drains well, but with little water retention, you have to set up a timed watering or be prepared to hand water every few hours, depending on plant requirements. Rockwool holds a lot of water is not ideal for Bato. Perlite/vermiculite mixtures are good but vermiculite holds a lot of water. Coconut fibre is becoming much more popular and is something I will be testing for the growth of the strawberries. From GPN an older article but it talks about a variety of growing media. Whatever you choose, if you are using Bato Buckets you need to keep the media from clogging the system. Painter’s filter bags are a great way hold the growing media and prevent it from being washed down into the watering system and into the pumps.

This article barely scratches the surface of growing hydroponically. I have much to learn but so far, with the strawberries, I have blossoms, and soon I hope to have berries. Whatever you choose to grow and however you choose to grow it, have fun, much luck and enjoy.

Scrambled Eggs with Everything

It’s minus brutal outside, but we have a fridge full of breakfast makings.  Most of the time breakfast usually depends on what’s in the fridge, but today I was a bit more prepared. I was thinking western omelet or frittata, something interesting, but I decided I want to see all the ingredients. So I created a plate that was separate layers. That is especially nice when you have ingredients like Blue Oyster mushrooms from Gruger Family Fungi. Making this is a little more effort, because you have to prep and cook each of ingredients separately, before cooking the eggs. If this is more than you want to do first thing in the morning, do what I did and make it more of a brunch dish. This would also make a great lunch plate or breakfast for supper, as we’ve been known to do.

The ingredients are a quantity for breakfast for two, but I’m sure you can do the math to increase it. The joy with cooking like this is that if you don’t have all the ingredients, or you have preferences it’s easy to change it up. The one thing I always use my freshly dried basil leaves. Crumbled basil leaves have far more flavour, especially when you rub the leaf bits in your fingers, just before adding to the eggs. I can never get enough of that aroma.

Dice or slice each of the ingredients, as noted, so your presentation is uniform. If you are going to the effort to make a dish with multiple layers like this, presentation is everything. We eat with our eyes first, so why not make your meals feel like you are dining out and take a couple extra minutes to plate everything.

Ingredients:

  • 2 eggs per person
  • 6-8 oyster mushrooms
  • 2 pinches dried basil
  • 1/3 cup each, red, orange and yellow pepper
  • 4 slices lean bacon
  • 1/4 cup water
  • Salt and pepper to taste
  • 1/4 cup finely grated cheese

Method:

  1. Chop the peppers into 1/4″ squares.
  2. Slice the oyster mushrooms into 1/2″ wide, long strips.
  3. Slice the bacon into 1/4″ strips.
  4. Saute the bacon until almost crisp. Drain on paper towel and set aside to keep warm. Leave the fat in the pan.
  5. Saute the pepper mixture until tender and set aside to keep warm.
  6. Saute the mushrooms in the bacon fat, adding the 1/4 cup of water to keep the mushrooms tender. Set aside to keep warm.
  7. Rub the basil leaf to refresh the aroma. Combine with the eggs, and a bit of water and beat.
  8. Reduce the heat and cook the eggs until just done.
  9. Plate the eggs, then sprinkle on the bacon. Spoon the pepper mixture around and on the eggs.
  10. Top with grated cheese, and if desired a sprinkle of salt and pepper.

Rosemary Potatoes with Smoked Pork Chops

I’ve heard lots of great things about A & A Meats so I was delighted to find him as a fellow vendor at the Westview Village Night Market. Besides sausage and pepperoni, I brought home these delightful smoked pork chops. What better pairing for the chops than rosemary glazed baby potatoes? By rosemary glazed, I mean our rosemary jelly. The sweet rosemary wine jelly is a beautiful combination with the smokey, salty flavour of the smoked chop. Even better, it’s all cooked stovetop, in one pan. Well, two for me, since a served it with baby peas.

Ingredients:

  • 3 cups baby potatoes
  • 2 small onions
  • 3 cloves garlic
  • 1 tbsp oil
  • 2 tbsp rosemary jelly
  • 1/4 cup water
  • 2 – 4 smoked pork chops
  • Rinse baby potatoes.

Method:

  1. Slice 2 small onions.
  2. Crush garlic.
  3. Add canola oil to covered saute pan and heat.
  4. Toss potatoes, sliced potatoes and garlic in the pan.
  5. Season with salt and pepper.
  6. Soften 2 tbsp rosemary jelly in 1/4 cup water and add to the pan.
  7. Reduce heat. Cover and cook for 10 min, until potatoes are tender.
  8. Move cooked potatoes aside and add smoked chops.
  9. Cover and cook until chops are heated through.
  10. Cook peas or veggies of choice.
  11. Plate using pan juices as a glaze.

How to Cook with Fresh Herbs

Yes, even in an Alberta winter you can cook with fresh herbs. In fact it’s probably the best time, as far as enjoyment goes. Just the aroma of the fresh herbs takes you back to summer dining. Bruise a fresh leaf and inhale. You won’t be able to help yourself. You have to smile and savor that aroma.

As for what herbs are best fresh? Just about everything, but herbs with woody stocks like rosemary and thyme hold their flavour well when dried. The tender stocks, like the basils, cilantro and chives are far better fresh.

Where to Find Fresh Herbs?

Well, there is the fresh produce department in your grocery store. But those poor bruised cuttings can be pricey and if they are discounted as a store loss leader, you know the quality probably isn’t great. Sometimes the groceries have live plants, but you need to get them while they are still fresh as they don’t get much care and attention, ie. watering once they are put on the display.

Variety on the grocery shelf is limited and frequently you will find an empty peg where the dill should be. Thai Basil, Lemon Grass or Kafir Lime are almost non-existent, except in the Asian markets. Herbs like Marjoram or Savory are pretty much only available dried in a bottle, unless you know a local grower.

There is your own windowsill, if you brought in your plants before the temperatures dropped. There are lots of ways to grow fresh in your home, depending on your space and lighting restrictions. Ideally start with something small and easily cared for, while you are experimenting with how what to grow. The photo is of a tiny countertop hydro system we which we experimented. We grew a number of different herbs very successfully.

Farmers’ and Community Markets are a great source of fresh herbs and you may still be able to get herbs from local growers. (Shameless plug, we grow a variety of fresh herbs all year round.)

Why is Fresh Better?

Tune into any cooking show and watch the chef. They are always chopping fresh herbs to add to their recipes. A big reason for this is the flavour. Yes, if you look up the conversion you will see that you need more fresh vs dried herbs, but the aroma of the fresh herbs is so much better. Like anything else, freshly picked provides way more nutrients and antioxidants. Plus a sprig or two of the herb makes a beautiful garnish on your dish, and presentation is important, including at the family dinner table.

One note to make on using fresh herbs is the length of cooking time. Some cooks say why bother with fresh if you are simmer for an hour or more, but European chefs are famous for their use of bouquet garni.  Bouquet garni is a bundle of fresh herbs, tied together with a string. That makes it easier for you to pull it out of the pot prior to serving. Rosemary, bay leaf, thyme, tarragon and parsley are the most common herbs that you would remove prior to serving. If you are using a bouquet garni bag you can also add peppercorns and other spices to the bag. Bouquet garni bags are fine cotton or muslin, but you could use tea egg in a pinch.

To Chop or not to Chop

Not a question really, more like a kitchen myth, says Peter Aitken. But it is a point of some debate. I go with ‘chop’ in a cooked dish, ‘tear’ if it’s a salad. It would be my opinion and yes, it is with some bias, that I say it is more important the quality of the ingredient and less how you get it into the pot.

Have a great day and may your cooking always be successful!

Laura