sweet potato & ricotta gnocchi two-ways

a field of sweet potato gnocchi ... like little orange pillow-flowers growing in my kitchen.


ingredients
about 2 cups cooked, mashed sweet potato.
2/3 cup ricotta cheese. draining it helps, but it's not necessary.
about 1 & 1/4 c all-purpose flour, plus extra for rolling and dusting the workspace.
salt to taste.
shakes of black pepper.
a little nutmeg/cinnamon blend.

directions
mix up the sweet potato, ricotta, and seasoning.
add flour to make a dough. it should be a little sticky, but if its really got a grip on your hands, don't be shy about adding a little extra flour.
divide dough into six portions.
on a lightly floured work surface, roll each portion into a log approximately 1 inch in diameter.
cut each log into 1-inch portions.
at this point, you can freeze the gnocchi for later. or ...

deliciousness option #1: boiled
(1) set a large pot of salted water to boiling.
(2) drop in the gnocchi, about 10 at a time. you don't want them to bump into each other too much, and you don't want the water to cool down too much.
(3) boil for about 3 minutes, or until the gnocci have expanded a bit and look slick, but not waterlogged.
(4) toss with brown-butter sauce, add parmesan and sage, and go!

deliciousness option #2: fried. yes, mmm, fried.
(1) put a little olive oil in a pan and heat it up on medium.
(2) drop in some gnocchi.
(3) fry until brown and crispy on the outside, hot and mushy on the inside.
(4) toss in sauce and devour.

these, below, are unsauced, but i mixed them up with some delicious homemade pesto. lots of folk seem to limit their sweeter pastas to sweet or straight-buttery sauces, but i thought the contrast of bright, garlicky pesto let this dinner be decadent without getting heavy.