Pinterest Challenge: Sweet Potato Gnocchi

Spoiler Alert: It's still a challenge, even if I lose. Badly.

My husband is a huge fan of gnocchi. Every time it's on the menu, whether at home or a restaurant, I know he's going to get it and love it. That said, I've never been ambitious enough to try to make it from scratch. I'm more the buy it in a bag, boil it, serve it with homemade brown butter sage sauce, call it good enough kind of cook.

Until I saw this recipe for Sweet Potato Gnocchi featured on Design Sponge. Now that sounds impossible to find in my grocery worth the effort.

Reading the comments gave me the idea that I'd be okay using the flour I had on hand rather than searching the flours called for in the recipe. So, armed with two baked sweet potatoes, some flour, and a lot of excitement, I got to work.

Adding flour to mashed sweet potatoes

My first batch

It's not unusual for my husband to help out in the kitchen. Actually, to be fair to him, he might cook more often than I do. He certainly does more dishes than I do. But this time he was very involved. "Do you need help?" "Can I take pictures for your blog?" "Can I take pictures for our photo album?" "Should I be cutting the onion yet?"

Beginning of the sauce. Cooking the last of the gnocchi.

The cooked piece we pulled out and ate immediately seemed pretty flavorful, fairly good, if a little wetter than I expected. Not soggy, just a bit slimy on the outside.

I threw them in with the sauce, thinking I could use the heat of the pan to crisp up the outside a little.

Attempting to incorporate the sauce and gnocchi. 

But something was horribly wrong.

I don't know what.

My best guess? One of the ingredients in the sauce was past its prime.

My husband's description? I'll stick to the sanitized comment of: "the worst thing we've ever made," and let you imagine the description of the actual flavor. Let's just say we wound up going out for Mexican food.

Internet, you win this round. Big time.