✨sweet potato gnocchi!✨

I'm rooting for you 🍠

Mar 02, 2024

Hey pals!

It’s Saturday, March 2nd, 2024. Here’s all the news that’s fit to newsletter.

This newsletter may contain affiliate links, where I earn a small commission on purchases at no additional cost to the purchaser. Any recommended products are independently selected (by me).

what’s happening with No Expert?

If it seems like things have been a bit quiet from me lately, it’s not for lack of activity – I’m working hard prepping a bunch of new videos to come out this spring with new and improved video and sound (exciting!!). I’ll of course share the videos here as they come out, but in the meantime, I encourage you to get! Pumped! Up!

And, if you need a video fix, check out some of these excellent older videos that you might have missed:

$207 vs $16 French Toast – I shot this ingredient swap episode with Chef Lish Steiling while profoundly jet lagged a few days after returning from Malaysia and Thailand in 2022, I think the resulting video was fun and chaotic!
4 Levels of Custard – this is one of the least-watched 4 levels episodes, but I think it has a lot of good stuff going on, including the wonderful Chef Lani Halliday making a yuzu crème brûlée and my low-lactose banana cream pie recipe.
Ranking All the Liquors in our House – an oldie but a goodie! Should Dan and I do this again?

recipe: sweet potato gnocchi

I’ve mentioned this project a few times now, and the recipe is finally here!

A few months ago, I got this idea in my head that I wanted sweet potato gnocchi, but none of the recipes I found online quite matched up to my expectations, so I set about putting together the dinner I had in my head.

This is sweet potato gnocchi with pancetta, root vegetables (including the turnips I was mulling over at the end of January), brown butter, and sage.

Sweet Potato Gnocchi

53.1KB ∙ PDF file

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what’s cooking

My cookbook a month project continues apace!

The cookbook I’m focusing on for March is The Harrowsmith Cookbook (Volume Number 1: Classic & Creative Cuisine). This is a cookbook my dad gave me (specifically, his old copy!) when I moved out of college dorms and into my first apartment with some friends.

While the singular foot of counter space in that apartment rendered many of its recipes impossible, there are some old favorites I remember him cooking (particularly a mysteriously delicious apple-onion-curry soup) that I now have the counter space for and want to bring into my regular dinner rotation. There’s a 1996 collected edition that seems to be easier to find and purchase, if you’re itching to join me on this journey.

Here’s everything else.

Cookbook thoughts:

From Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, I’ve made the vinegar chicken, slow roasted salmon, avocado citrus salad (pictured above), carrots and Brussels sprouts with agrodolce, salted caramel sauce, and various vinaigrettes. Everything has been delicious! My only note is that the index at the back of the book does not always accurately correlate to recipes (or will give you page numbers for every time something in mentioned in the book), which can make it difficult to navigate from that angle. Overall, highly recommend!
From More Than Cake, I’ve made the Buckwheat Chocolate Chip Cookies, Focaccia with Apricots and Olives, and have the ingredients assembled for the Jammy Coffee Cake. The recipes are delicious. I think this is a great cookbook for people who have done some baking and are ready to move to the next level, moving to ingredient weights from cups and spoons and dedicating more time to their bakes in order to get a bakery-quality result. If you’ve asked, “Why doesn’t my cake taste like the professional version?,” this is a great guide to add more advanced techniques to your repertoire. Chef Natasha Pickowicz is also known for flavor combinations that combine sweet and savory and unexpected ingredients, so again, great for expanding your creativity with baked goods.

And a few recipes:

I really enjoyed this smoked mackerel dip recipe from Fishwife.
I was thrilled to grab Chef Caroline Schiff’s brioche recipe from the Le Creuset website.
I’m currently mid-marinade trying out this chicken wing recipe from Chef Ayesha Nurdjaja, whose restaurants are transcendently good.
I had to cut out coffee thanks to some stomach issues and am, at least for the moment, all-in on tea. I’m test driving an Earl Grey cinnamon roll recipe and doing my best to stay awake. Favorite [black] tea recommendations accepted and appreciated at this time!

and that’s the latest dispatch from my kitchen

Thanks so much for reading! I hope you weathered February as well as you could, and that March brings you cozy days indoors and a nice burst of sunshine. For better or worse, I’m on a BeeGees kick, so here’s a song for you. Talk to you in a few weeks!

Until next time,