Adoption Spotlight: Misha and Marco

Okay, I've been really bad lately with updating this blog, especially from the pitty  side of things.

At least I have good reasons for it though. This summer I went back to my job from last summer at the vets office and managed to get a 40 hour work week. Plus I was taking a calculus class at night so there wasn't much time for baking or anything fun. 

And now that I'm back in school! But I've been ridiculously busy because I'm trying to start a new club on campus that's all about animal community service. We're going to be working with Pitty Love Rescue to help fundraise as well as with the big local shelter here.

Anyway, I don't want to bore you with my personal life, so on to the dogs.

The first pup I'll be spotlighting this week is the marvelous Misha.  Misha has been with us for longer than I would like. She is an absolute love. She's way more curious now than when she first came to us. Now she loves the camera and wants to stick her cute little nose in it.

Her beautiful orange/ tawny coloring comes out wonderfully in her pictures. I also am absolutely in love with her worried little face. She always looks concerned about something, like she's pondering the problems of the world.

Long story short, Misha is an awesome petite little girl.  We also think that she would do great in agility classes at some point because she is so athletically built and svelte.  Misha would probably do better in a house with out kitties but seems fine with kids.

She also loves to make silly faces:

Marco is a 4 month old, absolute ham as you can see. He was part of a litter that came to Pitty Love at 4 weeks old. He now lives with one of our board members with her daughter and is good with other dogs and cats.  

  He can be a puppy at times though and loves to run head first into play, which not all other dogs are comfortable with.  From what I've heard, Marco just loves to play and cuddle and be around people at home. I think he would make a wonderful addition to almost any family! I love spending time with him at adoption events because he such a comical little puppy. He loves his squeaky hamburger and didn't want to let Misha play with any of his toys. He is also really inquisitive and loves to explore all over the Petco that we hold our events at. And when he's not allowed to do what he wants he just flops down on the floor and gives you the most fed up little look.

He's also a total goofball: 

Marco also makes the most ridiculous faces sometimes. 

Looks like he's saying "you want to adopt me right? *wink* *wink*"

As per one of our experienced fosters: "while Marco is a sweet puppy, he is very assertive and will need a family who is dog savvy. Marco will need to keep up with his training in order to maintain his wonderful temperament!"

See Misha's adoption page HERE!

See Marco's adoption page HERE!

Marco has since been adopted!

Gnocchi

I don't know about you, but I love starches. I love pasta, bread, potatoes. I'll have a pasta dish with french fries or some other form of potato on the side. I don't care, I love it. 

So when I had a bag of potatoes sitting in my cabinet the other day I couldn't think of a better way to combine two of the things that I love best: pasta and potatoes.

For those of you who don't know, gnocchi is essentially pasta dumplings made out of potato. The word gnocchi most likely came from the Italian word "nocchio" which means a knot of wood or from "nocca" which means knuckle. If you look at them this makes a lot of sense, since to me at least, the look almost like the joint of a thumb with ridges in it.  

See? Kind of like knuckles of wood.

Apparently though, originally they weren't made with potato at all, but instead they were made with semolina dough mixed with eggs.  I like them with potato though and that's really the most common way you see it today so I decided to go that route.

For my version I actually used a loose interpretation of Mario Batali's recipe.  I think I ended up using a little more flour than he did and I probably should have used more than I did cause my dough was still sticky, but more on that in a minute.  I also don't have pictures of the first few steps but they're pretty self explanatory so I think you'll be okay.

First you'll want to boil a few potatoes. I didn't happen to have russet potatoes so I used white potatoes (which hardly cost anything at Wegmans). I used about seven smallish ones, about the size of my fist.  After boiling them until relatively soft, I let them cool a little bit until they wouldn't burn my fingers and took the skins off. 

Now, as per my usual college ways, I of course didn't have a vegetable mill or a ricer. I didn't even have any sort of strainer because I lost it in a move at some point. So I used forks. Yeah, I know, it doesn't get much lamer than that. But it worked pretty well.  I did end up mushing some of the smaller pieces with my fingers because the forks weren't helping.  Once you're done you should get a pile that looks more or less like this:

Now that you've essentially got mashed potatoes, you can create a well in the middle of the pile:

And then you sprinkle (re: dump) the flour over the whole pile:

Create a new well in the center and add your egg!

Now use your hands to mix it all together!  I decided at this point to put it in a mixing bowl because I was making a royal mess trying to keep it on the cutting board.  Alternatively you could just do it on a clean, floured counter, but I didn't feel like cleaning it afterwards so I used the bowl:

Then take a fist-sized chunk and roll it into a log, about an inch wide:

You might have to add more flour as you roll it out, mine was pretty sticky. Or you could mix more flour into the main dough until it's tacky, but not impossible to work with.  Then take a sharp knife and cut the log into about 1/2 in wide pieces.  You might want to shape them a little more with your hands at this point or add the signature lines with a fork. I'm a lazy college student and I realized that this made a ton of dough and there was no way I was fussing with all of that so I just made them into little "torpedoes" as my dad calls them, and called it a day:

To cook them, bring a pot of water to a boil then put 12-15 gnocchi in at a time, allowing them to float to the surface and then cook for about another minute more before removing from the pot with a slotted spoon. At that point you can add more. Don't add too many at a time or it will take longer because the gnocchi will lower the temperature of the water too much.  

Here's what they look like while cooking, before they float:

And after you take them out:

At this point you can treat them like regular pasta: toss them in sauce, put some olive oil and salt on them etc.

I like mine a little more crisp than they come out of the pot so I sautéed them in a hot pan with some olive oil and rosemary until they were slightly browned:

Yum!

Here's the recipe:

3 pounds russet potatoes

2 c. flour

1 egg

1 pinch of salt (or more)

Boil the whole potatoes until they are soft (about 45 minutes). While still warm, peel and pass through vegetable mill onto clean pasta board.

Set 6 quarts of water to boil in a large spaghetti pot. 

Make well in center of potatoes and sprinkle all over with flour, using all the flour. Place egg and salt in center of well and using a fork, stir into flour and potatoes, just like making normal pasta. Once egg is mixed in, bring dough together, kneading gently until a ball is formed. Knead gently another 4 minutes until ball is dry to touch.

Roll baseball-sized ball of dough into 3/4-inch diameter dowels and cut dowels into 1/2-inch long pieces. Flick pieces off of fork or concave side of cheese grater until dowel is finished. Drop these pieces into boiling water and cook until they float (about 1 minute). Meanwhile, continue with remaining dough, forming dowels, cutting into 1-inch pieces and flicking off of fork. As gnocchi float to top of boiling water, remove them to dry paper towel or plate. Prepare as desired.

Also, these make approximately a zillion so I highly recommend either cutting the recipe in half or freezing a lot of them.  This is less than half:

You've been warned!