Kitchen F#!% Ups

As chiles go, poblanos are fairly mild. Still, it's generally not recommended that you rub your eye after you've been seeding and slicing them.

I made gnocchi for the first time ever today. It wasn't very hard, and it turned out really nice. Until I tried to cook it. The plan was to cook the gnocchi in boiling water, then pan-sear them in butter and shave black truffle on the top. I cooked the gnocchi in the boiling water until it floated to the top. It didn't take long. Then I heated butter in a skillet and when it stopped foaming, I added the gnocchi. Everything was going fine until the gnocchi started to stick all over the pan. I ended up with a mushy mess, no brown crust on the outside of the gnocchi. It was all stuck to the pan.

Problem number one: I should have cooked the gnocchi slightly longer. The main bonehead move was using a regular pan instead of a nonstick. What was I thinking? I cooked a second batch and it turned out much, much better.

Big gloppy mess:

• Pan-Seared Potato Gnocchi (Fine Cooking #90, January 2008, p. 62) with Browned Butter & Black Truffle