The Aspiring Luddite

	I carry no phone An aspiring Luddite In a wired world. Mastodon Verification Link	Jeff Berry is an early adopter of the Internet and the Web, a late adopter of Twitter, and declines to adopt Facebook. With the death of Google+, he migrated to the Fediverse. He admins a medievalist Mastodon instance. He hates cell-phones.

Sweet Potato Gnocchi with Calamari in Spicy Tomato Sauce
13 January 2011

[The final dish] The box of storage vegetables sits there in a cool place in the house daring me to do something interesting with it. Gratins, soups and stews are all there for the taking, but sometimes the box seems to taunt me, saying, "Go on, try something else."

Alright, box. I shall. Gnocchi are usually made with potatoes, using sweet potatoes gives them a different texture and flavor. Fortunately, both flavor and texture are not simply new, but also good.

Sweet Potato Gnocchi

1 lb/ 400 gm sweet potatoes
4 cups flour (more or less)

Peel and simmer the sweet potatoes for 1/2 hour, until tender. Mash thoroughly. Add the flour a cup at a time, and work it in well. At first you can use a spoon, but eventually your hands will probably be the right tool. Keep adding flour, bit by bit, until you have a fairly sticky dough.

[Dough as snakes] Roll the dough out into 1/2" snakes and cut into 1" pieces. If you can't get the dough to make snakes, add a bit more flour. The snakes don't have to be perfect, and if they don't stay in nice even cylinders, that's alright. You do need to be able to get them into the pieces the size you need and have them hold together when you cook them.

[All the Gnocchi] Bring a pot of salted water to the boil. Drop the gnocchi in a few at a time and cook for three or four minutes, until they float to the surface. Remove to a colander while you cook the rest.

Calamari in Spicy Tomato Sauce

This is a very basic red sauce for pasta. In this case, it is also used to cook the squid, but I often make it plain.

1 28 oz can of crushed tomatoes

1 onion, chopped

6 cloves of garlic, minced

2 tsp salt

1 Tbs dried oregano

2 Tbs red pepper flakes

a dollop of olive oil, perhaps 1 Tbs or so

1 lb squid, tubes cut into rings, tentacles cut into pieces

[Squid] Heat the olive oil and sauté the onion and garlic for a minute or so, then add the oregano, salt and red pepper. Cook for another thirty seconds then add the tomatoes. Stir well, add the squid, cover and simmer for thirty minutes.

The recipe above has a lot of garlic and red pepper in it. If you don't like heat in your pasta sauce, simply dial the red pepper back, although leave some in or the sauce will get a little bland.

To serve, spoon over the gnocchi and top with grated parmesan - unless you feel that cheese on calamari is blasphemous, in which case, by all means omit it.

The Aspiring Luddite