Here is another potato recipe that makes a simple and versatile side dish. Steak fries are great because they are easier to make than real fries and you can eat them with your fingers. They also have a great combination of crispiness and creaminess. Really, you can’t go wrong! I served mine with crab cakes.
Pre-heat your oven to 450ºF. Cut one baking potato per person into 8 wedges. It’s easy to make even wedges if you continue cutting the potato in half lengthwise until you end up with 8 pieces. Toss them with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and lay them out on a baking sheet. Your baking sheet should be well-greased so your potatoes don’t stick. Put them into the oven and bake them for 30 minutes, flipping the fries over at the 15 minute mark. The fries are less prone to breaking if you lift the potatoes from their thicker, skinned sides. When the steak fries come out of the oven, season them with freshly chopped herbs or anything else like parmesan cheese. I’d say these are like KFC fries, but, well… they don’t make my mouth feel funny.
Shopping list:
- Baking potato- 1 per person
- Olive oil
- Salt and pepper
I have wanted to make my own gnocchi for a long time, but I was scared. It seemed like such a daunting and difficult task- especially after seeing Top Chef contestants have their gnocchi massacred by the judges. I couldn’t imagine that mine would be worth eating. Oh, was I wrong. It is definitely worth eating. It’s nothing like the hard gnocchi I’ve found in most restaurants. Instead, it’s melt-in-your mouth light. I think it’s the second best gnocchi I’ve ever had (second to the gnocchi garnish that 
Gnocchi is challenging to make for two reasons. First, it makes an incredible mess. Second, it can get pretty boring rolling out the individual gnocchi (but if you made a smaller batch, it wouldn’t be an issue). If your desire to make gnocchi outweighs these two factors, you should definitely do it. After tasting the outcome, I will definitely be making it again! The first step is to boil some baking potatoes until they can easily be pierced with a fork. I used 8 smallish potatoes (almost 3 pounds). They yielded around 4 generous servings.
I’ve read that gnocchi is the fluffiest when the potatoes are broken down when they are still hot. So, take one potato out of the water at a time and separate the potato from the skin. This is easiest to do by cutting the hot potato in half lengthwise. Then, run a spoon around the edges of the skin to separate it from the potato, and use the spoon to scoop the potato out of its shell. Put the potato into a potato ricer or a food mill (what I used) and grind it up. 
Spread the riced potato out into an even layer to cool. Then, repeat the process with each of your potatoes. 
Once your potatoes are prepared, put them into a bowl to start making the gnocchi dough. I mixed my dough on my table and spent the rest of the night scraping it down. Don’t do that! Sprinkle the potato with 1 cup of flour, some ground black pepper, and some grated nutmeg (if you like it). Add 2 egg yolks to the potatoes, and mix everything together until it starts to form a dough. The dough will likely be very sticky.
Turn the dough out onto a generously floured work surface and knead more flour into the dough until its stickiness subsides enough that you can work with it. To make lighter gnocchi, you should try to knead and add as little flour to the dough as possible.
It’s time to start forming your gnocchi. Break off a piece of the dough, generously flour your hands, and roll out the dough until it’s 1/2 inch thick. 
Cut the gnocchi snake into 1 inch pieces. 
With generously floured hands, roll the pieces of dough into ovals. If you want your gnocchi to have ridges, roll the pieces against the tines of a fork. Place your completed gnocchi onto a sheet pan or other flat, transportable surface. Shaping the gnocchi can be very tedious, and you don’t have to do it if you don’t want to. Simply-cut pieces of gnocchi will be just as delicious.
The gnocchi is best when it’s cooked and eaten immediately. Bring a large pot of water to a boil, and add only so many gnocchi that they don’t touch in the pot. The gnocchi will drop to the bottom of the pot like stones, but they will rise to the surface as they cook. Let the gnocchi cook for 1 more minute after they rise, then remove them from the pot with a slotted spoon. Continue cooking the gnocchi in batches. 
For another easy sauce, purée some tomatoes, garlic cloves, and olive oil in a food processor. Add some black pepper, salt, and red pepper flakes. Then, simmer it on the stove until it reduces into a thick, chunky sauce.
The app is also great because it’s frequently updated with new accessories you can download for free. Of course, there is a much greater variety of accessories that are for sale too. My favorite thing to do with the app is to shake it into random mode so that my pictures are a surprise. The photos take a few seconds to “process” before they become visible, which leaves me in a polaroid-like state of suspense.
Here’s a picture of Stella sticking her head into a bouquet of roses my dad sent me for Valentine’s Day. Without the cool processing, this picture of Stella might be a little boring. But with the processing, her odd habits and impulses are amplified so the photo conveys her intermittent moments of lunacy.
Somehow, the random setting manages to align itself with the mood to make a picture even better. Instead of framing Stella Girl as a loon, here, it enhances her peaceful, gentle, mellow, lovableness. How could you not want to go snuggle that cutie?!
Hipstamatic has a way of making life look more beautiful (and professionally captured). It is hard to believe all of these pictures were taken with a cell phone. This fancy processing phenomenon has definitely proven its ability to instantly elevate a photo…even when capturing subjects less interesting and adorable than Stella. Have you captured any spectacular Hipstamatic (or other phone app-enhanced) photos?