Sweet Potato Gnocchi FTW!

Hey guess what? I ran the Bird-In-Hand Half Marathon in Lancaster, PA, last week, making it 1/2 number five! I will definitely be recapping that race ASAP, though before I get to that, SWEET POTATO GNOCCHI! Don't ask me why instead of focusing on my 19 credits I spend 3 hours making homemade pasta in what is possibly the world's tiniest kitchen, just know that it was delicious and my first time making pasta from scratch!
 I used a recipe from Epicurious and modified it because my space is small and I live in a dorm room so I don't have a full kitchen.

Sweet Potato Gnocchi Recipe from Epicurious

Ingredients-

- 3 cups of sweet potatoes (I had 2 really big ones)
-12 oz of ricotta cheese
-1 cup finely grated parmesan cheese
-2 tbs golden brown sugar
-2 tsp plus 2 tbs salt
-1/2 tsp nutmeg
-2 3/4 cups flour

First thing you do is you have to drain your ricotta cheese for at least two hours. I had no idea how to do this and found out that you usually do it with a cheesecloth or a fine mesh sieve. Well I had neither of those. I used a pasta strainer over a bowl and it worked just fine!

It may not look glamorous, but it worked and I saved $$$!

When you've drained your ricotta, (may I suggest watching 2 episodes of The Newsroom while you're waiting?) wash your sweet potatoes, pierce them allover with a fork, and then put them on a plate and microwave them for ten minutes on high, flipping them over after five minutes.

Steamed 'taters

Now, dump the mash into a bowl with your drained ricotta and parmesan cheese and mix it up. Then add brown sugar, salt, and nutmeg. I actually used pumpkin pie spice because that's all I had and it tasted good so if you're feeling adventurous or just lazy like me, you could do that too.
Now add the flour one cup at a time. I added the full amount even though some reviewers of the recipe said it was too flour-y. I thought it was fine because otherwise the dough was really sticky. I also had some chunks of sweet potato that you can probably see in the picture below. It wasn't a problem because when you cook the pasta, it just all gets soft.
After you've made the dough, roll it into one inch logs and then cut every inch. Because I have zero counter space, I just rolled the dough into small balls of pretty equal size. They were not as pretty looking but they were just as good!

you can use a fork to make the gnocchi roll you see at restaurants. Only takes a few more minutes but not necessary. 

This recipe says it makes 10-12 servings. I think I made mine a bit too big so I think I will only get about 8 servings. You could half this recipe but I just froze mine on a big baking sheet and then after they were frozen through, put them in freezer bags. I figure if I'm spending 2-3 hours on a recipe, I might as well make meals for a whole week, right?

YUM!
The recipe includes brown butter sage sauce which is pretty good. Since I'm only making one serving at a time, I only put one tablespoon of butter in the pan and then added the gnocchi. I also topped the gnocchi with some more parmesan. Everything tastes better with more cheese, this is just a fact. Happy eating!