The first time I had gnocchi, my sister made it for me. We ate gnocchi with pink sauce because it was the 90′s.  I felt cool eating this trendy, hip food with my older sister. About 20(!) years later gnocchi still has a special allure. Except now I make it from scratch.

But that doesn’t mean I’m Heidi Swanson (obviously, just take a look at my photos). My gnocchi aren’t perfect little pillows, but they’re still better than the stuff you’ll find at Olive Garden. That’s saying something, right?

Here’s my low maintenance gnocchi method. I use two eggs because I like gnocchi with some bite to it. I hate when it disintegrates in the water like balls of mashed potatoes. This method will make about 60 gnocchi, so you can freeze them unless you plan to eat them all in one sitting.

Ingredients

• 2 large russet potatoes
• 2 eggs
• 1 1/2 – 2 cups flour
• salt to taste

1. Place the potatoes in a pot and cover with water. Add a generous pinch of salt. Bring the water to boil and then simmer until the potatoes can be easily pierced with a fork. Remove them from the water and place them in a bowl.

2. Wait until the potatoes are cool enough before handling them. You can cut them in half so they’ll cool faster. Then scoop the potato flesh into a mixing bowl and discard the skins.

3. Add one cup of flour to the potato flesh. Using your hands, knead the mixture until the potato and flour are well combined, and it is as smooth as possible.

4. Crack the eggs and add them to the potato and flour mixture. Knead the eggs into the other ingredients to form a dough.

5. At this point the dough will be very sticky. Little by little incorporate 1/2 cup to 1 cup of flour into the dough so that it is just pliable enough to handle. Use as little flour as possible. Add a generous pinch of salt to taste.

6. Flour a clean counter top to prevent the dough from sticking. Taking a large ball of dough in your hands, roll it out into a long cylinder about 1/2 inch to 1 inch thick. Press the top down with the tinges of a fork. Slice the dough roll into pieces about 1 inch wide. They don’t need to be uniform as this is artisanal gnocchi after all!

7. Bring a pot of salted water to a boil and drop in the gnocchi. When they have all floated to the top, drain the water. Alternatively, place the dumplings on a cookie sheet and leave in the freezer until frozen. Place the gnocchi in a Ziploc bag and boil later using the directions above.