Purple Gnocchi!

Yes, our Gnocchi is purple.  This is because they are made with purple yam.  The purple yam is traditionally used in Asian sweets, and so is, well, sweet.  But they also have a similar texture and flavor to sweet potatoes, so we thought, why not--let's make gnocchi.

We used the carrot-whole wheat gnocchi recipe from the Food Matters cookbook by Mark Bittman, just subbing the yam for the carrot. Things like gnocchi kind of intimidate me, since there are so many steps, and a lot of it involves kneading and rolling.  But I swallowed my fear and made it!

Something that is interesting about purple yams is that they don't turn the water purple; they turn it a strange blue color!

After boiling the yams, kneading them with flour, and then rolling them out into ropes and cutting them into cute little gnocchi shapes, we let them rest for 30 minutes.

Then it was time for boiling them!  After only 4 minutes, they were finished.  I served mine with oil that had been sauteed with rosemary and spinach.  My lovely partner had hers with the pork bolognese that she made.  That sauce too was chock full of veggies, including our CSA carrots.

So far so good--we ate lots of veggies, and used up some of the carrots and rosemary from the CSA!