Wash your potatoes. Using a vegetable peeler, remove all skin from your potatoes. This will give you a smooth, fluffy, melt in your mouth finished product. Now cut your potatoes into large pieces. You can also boil them whole. You don't want to cut them into small pieces because it is likely they will overcook and take on too much water making your gnocchi gummy.

Place potatoes in pot and cover with cold water. There should be about 1-2 inches of water above your potatoes. Add a small handful of salt to your water (about a tablespoon). This helps add flavor throughout your finished gnocchi. Turn the stove heat to high and bring to a boil.

Your potatoes might cook faster or slower depending on the size of your cuts. You can check them by stabbing a fork into a large piece. If it easily pierces through to the center. Turn off your stove

Carefully drain your potatoes. Be sure to let all excess water drain away.

If you have a stand mixer, you can use that instead of a hand mixer through the next several steps. If you don't have either kind of mixer, you can use a fork but it will take a little more elbow grease. Mix your potatoes as if you were making mashed potatoes and try to remove all lumps. Stop when your potatoes are mostly smooth. Overwhipping them can cause some potatoes to become gummy as too much starch is released.

Now add in 1 1/2 cups of flour and 1 egg and a pinch of salt. Because all potatoes are different sizes and have different water content, you may need more or less flour. Mix on low speed to combine and add more flour as needed until your dough resembles play dough. You should be able to roll it into a ball without it sticking to your hands.

You can see in the background that I had extra flour from the second cup leftover.

Traditionally, Gnocchi are shaped on a wooden board with grooves to give the pasta little ridges so that sauce can really stick to them. At home, you can use a fork which I've demonstrated above.

This step takes a little practice and a little time, but don't worry, if they aren't perfect they'll still taste great. I only textured a few to demonstrate and then left the rest untextured because I was feeling lazy.

Continue portioning and shaping your pasta until you've used all of your dough. We're going to boil the pasta in batches, so having them all laid out and ready to go is helpful. You can line the sheet with foil, parchment, or paper towels for easier clean up.

Gnocchi are fantastic little pillows that are great with any traditional pasta sauce or even just butter and herbs. They make a great main course with the addition of sauce, sauteed vegetables, or meat. It also makes a good side dish in place of rice, pasta, or mashed potatoes.

I topped ours with some store bought pesto and shaved parmesan cheese. Usually I would have added some sauteed veggies in as well, but this was towards the end of the week and we were running low on groceries.