New Recipe: Sweet Potato Gnocchi

So the other day I finally had the opportunity to make the recipe I saw on The Foodie Scientist.  I had really been wanting to try it because J and I are both suckers for sweet potatoes.  Except usually we prefer them with brown sugar and butter (real healthy I know).  I thought that this recipe sounded delicious and worth a shot.

Gnocchi dough

I finally had a whole day on Friday to make these, believe me when they say you need 2.5-3 hours to make these they mean it.  The process of making the dough is not complicated, but you do have to be able to cook the potatoes for an hour and have time to make all the individual gnocchi which takes a decent amount of time.

Individual gnocchi before ridges are formed.

 I'm not a big fan of sage and to be honest I didn't feel like searching for chestnuts at the grocery store so my final product was only cooked in butter sauce and covered with some Parmesan.  Next time (because I froze half of the batch to see how they would cook up after being frozen) I will definitely try a different sauce.  While the gnocchi had a great texture, they weren't as flavorful as I was expecting them to be so maybe next time I'll pair them with some pesto sauce or some type of cream sauce.

They smelled delicious while they were cooking...mmm.

Finished product, may not look like a lot but it was filling.

I would absolutely make this again, but maybe with J's help because it was definitely tiring.  Oh and ps wear an apron!  Unless you have a huge counter space (which I do not ), you will most likely end up like this at the end of making the gnocchi.

Flour everywhere!

For me, an entire batch made roughly 165 gnocchi.

I'm off to run some errands.  Enjoy the beautiful day!

Lions and Tigers and Bears...oh my!

Today was one of those awesome days where J and I both have off from work, me a long weekend from school and J the first day off in almost a week.  The weather was PERFECT, not too hot, not too cool and a perfect end of the summer breeze.  Can you guess how we decided to spend it?  I'll give you one guess...

That's my name right there...sssssee?

Okay maybe one more guess...

I'm a year old but I'm still itsy bitsy.

Okay if you haven't figured it out, we went to the zoo!  I haven't been the Philadelphia Zoo since my cousins were little if not longer...they are both still relatively little @ 13 and 15 (i think...ha ha such a bad cousin here).  And let me tell you, being at the zoo I reverted to my 7 year old self...I couldn't wait to see the 3 month old giraffe and the elephants (which are sadly no longer at the zoo due to their inability to raise funding to create a larger and more updated habitat).

Even though J and I have been together for almost 4 years, it is one of the places that I went to as a child that I've never taken him to (along with the Camden Aquarium).  There are still so many places that I have yet to take him.  Its also fun when we go visit his family in California and he's the one showing me around.  It is one of the things I love most about our relationship, that he's from one coast and I'm from another, we get to do so many new and exciting things.

Anyway...back to the zoo. There were so many awesome exhibits that looked to be new and revamped.  Currently there is a Lego exhibit going on that is kind of cool (although I'd prefer to see real animals if I'm going to be at the zoo) where near a dozen or so animal exhibits there would be a Lego creation of the animal. Pretty nifty.

It took 1,100 hours to make.

Also, there were so many baby animals: orangutan, giraffe, turtles, kangaroo, and many more that we weren't even able to see because they were that new to the zoo.  You can't help but be in awe of the adorableness of these babies. 

This little one is around 3 months old.

I highly recommend taking a trip to the Philadelphia Zoo if you have the opportunity or live in the area.  Even on a crowded day like today (believe me with the nice weather and it being Labor Day Weekend there was a pretty large crowd), the zoo never felt overwhelming and it was a nice relaxing stroll.  I can't wait to take my own kids there one day...

Later Gators!