A Dinner Party AKA I Do Battle with Gnocchi Part I

In order to eat the massive amounts of food produced from "My Own Silver Spoon Project," my fiance decided to enlist the help of our friends.  Saturday I committed myself  to a full dinner with as many recipes as I could cram in, knowing that our friends would be there to dig in. Below is the most accurate account of "Gnocchi Time" and side dishes I could muster. 

The menu:  Mountain Crostini with Proscuitto and Apple Cream, Basic Gnocchi with Quick Tomato Sauce, Asparagus Au Gratin (made with Bechamel Sauce) and Pork with Orange Sauce.  Five, count them five glorious recipes for all to enjoy.  The one that had me the most worried was gnocchi.  It is essentially making my own pasta.  Self-efficacy was low my friends, very very low.  To procrastinate, I began with making the Bechamel Sauce, while prepping the asparagus for the Au Gratin.  This was hectic and unadvisable.  My Bechamel was then put aside (another mistake) as I finally took on the gnocchi, by boiling potatoes.    The potatoes were ready and it became gnocchi time.  Gnocchi time is not unlike "boss time" in that it can be awkward.  Please see the following link if my pop culture reference is meaningless to you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYhKOZhcG24

I digress, back to the gnocchi.  I drained them and mashed them according to the SS.  So far everything was calm, too calm.  Meanwhile, I started the "Quick Tomato Sauce": tomatoes, parsley,  garlic and oil, cook for 10 minutes.  "That is quick!" said my inner monolouge.  I started to feel reassured that the dinner was coming together with ease.

Back to tending the gnocchi, I added flour and a beaten egg and kneaded and the Silver Spoon was right, a dough was born.   A fairly sticky dough that I remedied by putting flour on my workspace and my hands.  I rolled them into snakes, thank goodness I was good at that in preschool, and there you had it, gnocchi.    It was wonderful. Domestic Goddess status reached and then of course, I realized I still had to form them into gnocchi type shapes.

The directions then told me to use the underside of a grater to make a mark in the middle of the gnocchi.  I realized that halfway through, the directions meant a box grater and I was using a plane grater. No, I don't have a box grater.  Kitchen things I don't have might become a common theme.  I switched to a butter knife dipped in flour and the work became much easier.  I set them aside on a linen napkin dusted with flour.  Not so bad.

I started boiling the asparagus for the 15 minutes as prompted by the directions and went onto the orange sauce for the pork just as I realized that my guests were to arrive in a half hour.  This is what is known as being in the weeds.  I also simultaneously remember that C., an invited guest of ours is a self proclaimed "gnocchi snob."  Cue cold feeling in the stomach.   I have both timers going for different dishes and gnocchi dough on my hands, my jaunty hosting sweater and a little bit in my hair.  How will our cook manage in bringing the gnocchi to life?  Will the guests arrive early?  Only this cook knows, and her 5 dinner guests.  Part II coming soon. . .