Ricotta Gnocchi (a.k.a. Gnudi)

Ran across this gem surfing food blogs- incredibly simple and tasty. Recipes vary, but the part that doesn't is 8oz. drained ricotta per egg. Add some amount of flour... I like less... under half a cup. Not more than 1.5 cups. Salt. sometimes shredded parm, or melted butter, or zest, or parsley or sage. Very wet dough, use a lot of bench flour to roll it out. Roll is the wrong verb, though.... you need a light hand. Helps if everything is cold. Use a marble if you have it. Extra dough seems to last a week.

I've made the ricotta gnocchi three times now, and prepared it 5 ways. More dough in the fridge for another try this weekend.

1. Ricotta gnocchi with beurre noisette and brown sugar
2. Pan fried gnudi with blueberries and sour cream
3. Ricotta gnocchi with watercress pesto
4. Gnudi with porcini in a red sauce
5. Ricotta gnocchi with bacon and maple syrup

All good, but the one with blueberries was awesome.

I've been using a spectacular whole milk ricotta from a local Vermont farm, but on the agenda is making my own from scratch- I made mozzarella from scratch many years ago, and this looks much easier. Also I'm going to try rice flour and potato flour for gluten-free variants.... not that I'm into that sort of thing, but it helps to have a few recipes in your pocket... and sometimes they turn out better. For example, 50% rice flour/50% all purpose/salt/cayenne makes vastly superior fried calamari.