Sweet Potato Gnocchi

Gnocchi, from the Italian for a knot in wood-nocchio-as in Pinocchio is a tasty little dumpling of potato and flour. It is somewhat difficult to make, more than handmade pasta as it can easily taste too much of flour, or too thick and doughy. Ideally made, they are light and fluffy, with either the scratching of fork tines or a dimple to catch any sauce. Here is a sweet potato gnocchi, made soft with the inclusion of ricotta cheese. We made a simple browned butter, sage, and prosciutto sauce for a rich but simple meal.

• 2-3 yams
• 12 oz ricotta cheese
• parmesan cheese
• 2 T brown sugar
• 2 t salt
  
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 2 3/4 cups all purpose flour
  

Turn the yams into mashed yams by piercing, microwaving for 10 minutes or so, peeling, and mashing. Stir in the ricotta and parmesan cheese, sugar, salt, and nutmeg. This will be a fairly wet mess. Stir in flour until a light dough forms. Working in batches, roll the dough into snakes of about 1/2 inch in diameter, and cut into sections about 1 inch long. Roll each piece around a fork to dent.

You can either freeze the gnocchi, or boil them in salted water for 5 minutes or so. They make good leftovers for a snowy afternoon as well.