Substantial gnocchi performance

Last night I tried two things I've been meaning to attempt for a while, but figured they would be too difficult/labor intensive/easy to mess up - gnocchi and homemade tomato sauce. I finally took the plunge on the gnocchi due to a basket of potatoes I saw on sale at the Ypsi Depot Town Farmer's Market for $1 in combination with my roommate's enthusiastic offer to help. The tomato sauce was inspired by observing a friend make fantastic sauce in his kitchen in the course of about thirty minutes - the taste made me want to cease and desist (geez, the legalese has taken over) eating inferior sauces from jars forever.

The tomato sauce was pretty successful, if a little thin. I tossed two tomatoes and four cloves of garlic into my food processor and chopped them up. (Note on the food processor - I bought it shortly after Christmas and when May came around and I still hadn't taken it out of the box, I attempted to return it with no receipt for the sake of not moving it 2,000 miles. I paid $40 for it, and then it was apparently marked down sometime between January and May to $11, because that was all they would give me for it. So, I took it back home, thinking I would sell it on craigslist, and thought, "No! I must try it out! Perhaps I will think it is the greatest thing ever!" So far I'm pretty impressed.) I sauteed chopped mushrooms and a couple more cloves of garlic in some olive oil, then added the pulvarized tomatoes, olive oil wine, salt and pepper. I let it simmer and added some other herbs and things until it tasted delicious. I left it on low heat to simmer and started on the gnocchi.

I peeled the already-boiled potatoes and handed them off to my faithful assistant to be mashed. I had seen some recipes that called for an egg to be added at that point, but this one only involved potatoes and flour. I decided to go with it so that my other roommate, the vegan, could have some. We added the flour, mixed it all up, and kneaded it. Then I rolled the dough into half-inch thick ropes and my roommate sliced them into inch long pieces. I rolled them against the tines of a fork to make the little impressions on them (for aesthetic and sauce-catching purposes) and we dropped them into the boiling water on the stove. When they bobbed up to the top we took them out with a slotted spoon. They turned out more or less gnocchi-like, but they were not light and fluffy like gnocchi should be. Instead they were kind of gummy and potatoey - not a disaster, but not exactly the desired result either. In any case, they did end up being a good vehicle for the yummy sauce.