November 24, 2008

O' Fun For... saving dinner!

I have lost my mind.
The baby (also know as The Terrorist) is stealing my brain away to make its own. Or maybe it was aliens, I don't know.
The point is, my brain has stopped being a reliable resource. Tonight was a fabulous example of my ongoing brain-loss...

I remembered that I had bought some potatoes last week for baked potatoes. I remembered to start getting them ready early enough that they would be nice and baked by dinnertime. As I scrubbed them, I noticed how yam-shaped they were. Then, as I was gouging out the eyes (so violent sounding!) I made an important discovery.
These potatoes were orange.
The potatoes were the last thing I picked up when I went shopping last week. I let Toby help me pick them out. I felt grossly sick at the time. I could come up with plenty of other excuses, but really- it all comes down to this missing brain thing I've got goin' on.
A few spots looked white, not orange, so I stuck them in the oven anyway and hoped that I had picked up some festive new kind of russet potato. After a while, the smell was unmistakable. They were sweet potatoes. Blast!

I searched through a million sweet potato casserole and candied yam recipes on allrecipes.com until I found this. Ahhhh! (That was the angel-miracle sound, by the way.) I had all the ingredients! (Well, garlic powder is close to a garlic clove, right?) I have been wanting to learn how to make gnocchi for a while now, so I decided this would be my dinnertime redemption! Hallelujah! Recipe-sharing websites be praised! (Uh-oh, starting to sound blasphemous. One day the lightning will get me.)

The recipe was easy enough, and once I realized why the water wasn't boiling (I may have...ahem..turned on the wrong burner or something...) the little orange gnocchies were cooked and ready for dinner. I was worried that this would turn out like the infamous spaetzla incident of '05 (lets just say there was sticky dough in every crevice of my kitchen with the exception of the pot of boiling water I wanted it to go into...), but no- these worked! They were fabulous! (If I do say so myself...) Even Toby ate his entire bowl of them. Yay! We ate them with store-bought alfredo-in-a-jar, and it was good, but next time I might try a less garlicky sauce, or just butter and parmesan maybe.

Here is my scary picture of the delicious gnocchi. They looked so nice against the blue glass pie pan, but my picture-taking skills are lacking a bit. I have yet to take a picture of food that looks appetizing. The pictures on allrecipes.com probably do it justice.



This whole incident reminded me of my favorite Bob Ross quote, "We don't make mistakes, we just have 'happy accidents'. "
True, Bob. True.



This post is dedicated to Bob Ross:
artist, philosopher, squirrel-whisperer.

6 comments:

Tiffany said...

Love it! Yay for happy accidents! :)

Corinner-Elly said...

Squirrel whisperer....?
*confused look*

Phyllis said...

On one episode (at least one) it went to a clip of him and a squirrel. I'm pretty sure the squirrel climbed up on his shoulder.

Molly said...

Your memory loss reminds me of mine. Once, during this pregnancy, I got some chicken out of the freezer and set it on the counter. I went to the opposite counter to get my cook book to find my recipe. I then when back to the freezer to get out the chicken for my recipe. I was livid! Where was my chicken? I know I bought chicken for this specific meal. How could it not be in the freezer? I'm pretty sure I was talking to myself and holding back on the explitives when I turned around and voila! There was the chicken on the counter. Hadn't I just taken it out of the freezer 30 seconds ago!?
These terrorists can make us do crazy things!

theferrisoneofall said...

hehe! Thanks for sharing! I needed a giggle! Thanks to Gaddz too. That made me giggle harder! :)

Savanna Sorensen said...

Dana,
You sure do know how to make me laugh! Good work on the gnochis.