Homemade Gnocchi

So friends, I was looking at bare cupboards but a migraine had me feeling like running out for groceries was not in my cards for the day. I found a pound of ground beef and decided spaghetti sounded easy and fast.
then I found that I had no premade sauce. I gussy up my sauce anyway, so I figured how hard could homemade sauce be, you see the TV chefs make their own all the time. I pinned a recipe for Gnocchi last week and decided that I would give that a try, since I've gotten a bit tired of the same old s'ghetti and sauce.

Recipe-
1 lb ground beef
1 small onion-chopped
garlic, italian seasoning,olive oil, S&P
canned tomatoes and canned tomato sauce
optional- basil pesto
I added olive oil to my pot and added the onions to lightly saute, then added the ground beef ( I use 93% so I hardly have any fat to drain), I added the garlic and spices, I use a good tablespoon of garlic and ital. and don't use much salt and pepper. I had half a jar of pesto leftover, so I decided that would probably taste pretty good as well. I also added a can of tomato sauce and one of diced tomatoes. I didn't love the chunks of tomatoes, but maybe blending the can of them in the blender would give a nice chunky consistency without the large chunks. Cook this all on low several hours, your sauce will thicken and turn a dark red and have a roasted taste. YUM!
For the Gnocchi, they are similar to chicken and dumplings dumplings in flavor and texture. Which I found really yummy with the pasta sauce. I will admit, I had rolled my dumplings out and placed them in a bowl to boil, but had to run and get my oldest from practice ( which of course ran over) by the time I had my water boiling, they had all stuck together. In the interest of time, I basically dropped them by the chunks into my boiling water. So please understand that mine are a little large and glumpy shaped from this.
Gnocchi Recipe
1 cup instant mashed potatoes
1 cup boiling water
1 egg beaten
S&P
1 1/2 cups AP floud
optional- 1 heaping tablespoon rosemary
Mix the hot water and mashed taters- I know, no one likes them really. (Fortunately I usually have some as emergency taters, they can be dressed up with mayo or sour cream and be ok.)  Then when the instant tater mix is cool, add your beaten egg, spices and then mix in flour. The dough will be pretty soft to handle. You can roll it out about the size of a breadstick and cut into 1 inch pieces. Or you can drop them into the water with no prep.
When ready to cook. Boil a pot of water, drop the dough in and it will float when they are cooked through. I left mine in every batch until the last piece floated up, then drained them in a strainer. Then I added them to the sauce pot and served after they were all cooked.
Really, if you are in a rush, you can drop them in the water and it will be just as good. Or you can buy the things at the supermarket and make your own sauce.
Thanks for dropping by!