Gnocchi

Place your potatoes in a pot of water, and put it on the stove. Don't peel them, just put them in tap water and put it on the stove. Set it to high. The reason we do it in this order is so that the potato skins stay intact through boiling. If you place a cold potato in boiling water, the skins crack. NO GOOD!

Let it boil until the potatoes are cooked. About half an hour or 40 mins, depending on the size of your potatoes. A knife should pass through them with little resistance when they're done. Don't poke them too much, though. The reason we boil them with skin on is so that they don't absorb a bunch of water. Piercing the skin too much will let unwanted water in.

Strain the potatoes. Now, hold each potato in a tea towel (to keep the heat from coming through to your hand) and use a knife to simply push away the skins. This will be super easy. Way easier than doing it when they're uncooked.

You can pass the cooked potatoes though a mill, but I just use my stand mixer. Unless your hand mashing skills are EXQUISITE, you'll want to employ some kind of machine. I tend to let the potatoes go in the mixer for a few minutes, until they're nice and fluffy. Crack an egg in there while it's mixing. You want to be quick about this or the egg will cook from the heat of the potatoes.

Next, start adding flour. I add about half the flour to the mixing bowl, then work the rest into sections of about 1/3 of the dough at a time.

Knead the second half of the flour in until you have a pretty stiff dough. If you need more than 2 cups of flour total, it's fine. Roll out that portion of dough (really, do it in 1/4 or 1/3-sized batches) into a big long snake of dough. You'll want it to be about the width of a typical thumb. Now cut the dough into small 1/2-2/3" bits. Place them off to the side on a floured surface. When you've finished cutting that snake, place these finished gnocchi into boiling water. Stir a bit to avoid sticking to the pot. They're finishing when they float. DO NOT OVERCOOK. They will end up like slime.

I like to fish out the finished gnocchi into a strainer with a bowl under it, then repeat the process with the next snake.

After each batch comes out of the pot, you should put the gnocchi into a serving dish lined with sauce. If they sit without sauce on them too long, they'll stick together. No good. I tend to layer sauce and cheese with the gnocchi like lasanga and then broil it.

You can try different varieties of this, too. Add some fresh herbs and spices to the dough. Add cheese. Try different potatoes. The world is your oyster!