Further adventures of the domestic goddess...

Update on the gnocchi: weird and sort of gross. I am not a huge fan. Making it was fun though! Now, most gnocchi is made using potatoes but I chose a ricotta gnocchi which is apparently a popular variation and I happen to love ricotta. So you make it using ricotta, eggs, and parmesean. This particular recipe was for a spinach infused variety and since I happen to have pureed spinach in my freezer I went for it. But just in case spinach-ricotta gnocchi was disgusting I divided the batch into three: the largest portion to be made with spinach puree, the middle portion plain, and the smallest portion to be made with beet puree (which is gross in pancakes but has a gorgeous color nonetheless). Then you add enough flour for the gooey crap to be workable as dough (but no more or the gnocchi will be dense and yucky) and shape the result into little football shapes that get boiled and sauced. Labor intensive but fun. And the result...well, Andrew liked the beet gnocchi best, surprisingly enough. And I am sort of on the fence. We both think they need some more textural interest. Like meat. Or SOMEthing. But I have a feeling the leftovers in our fridge will go bad before we can bring ourselves to pull them back out.

Now my more recent cooking adventures have been better. Last night, in spite of the heat, I made chicken braised with onion, carrots from our garden, a turnip, and (best of all) potatoes from our garden. Now, the potato patch is not yet ready to be fully harvested, but I snuck in like a thief, slid my fingers under the dirt, and pulled out some awesome potatoes. And I felt a lot more down there (*Squeal*). It was soooo good! Tonight I made chicken marinated in lime juice and then cooked with that same lime juice, lime zest, brown sugar, cayenne pepper, and mango chunks. Not as good honestly. It burned a little bit, was extremely limey (after several hours soaking in the juice of two limes, who wouldn't be?), and the mango got all smooshy but fibrous at the same time. Not appealing. Andrew liked it but I couldn't eat it all.

Speaking of the garden, we had our first tomato! Tada! It was a big Latah tomato and quite tasty. I had it on a sandwich after eating the first ceremonial slice (with salt). And more are on the way! Hopefully I will be ROLLING in tomatoes soon.

In other domestic news about the house, we have embarked upon a monstrous cleaning adventure. Over the weekend we cleaned our room AND the closet. I can proudly report that we have unearthed a lot of clothing we had forgotten about entirely, and now have a useable closet. We also have three boxes of clothing and a box of books for a garage sale some friends are having in a few weeks. Go us!