[What I had for breakfast this morning: Jasmine rice, a fresh egg, a big pile of beautiful frilly mustard greens, and kimchi.]

You know what's way less daunting to make than potato gnocchi, and yet equally impressive? Ricotta gnocchi!

We're laughing so hard because we're telling gnoch-gnoch jokes. I'm sorry! I couldn't resist. (photo credit: Adam Fisher)

And you know what makes those ricotta gnocchi even more impressive, and requires only a leetle bit more effort? Making your own ricotta!

If we can do it, you can do it. I promise. (photo credit: Adam Fisher)

All it takes is a little planning ahead and a flat surface you can throw flour all over.

Gnocchi for days. (photo credit: Adam Fisher)

Here's the ricotta recipe, from the always-reliable Serious Eats. It's admittedly not a true ricotta recipe; proper ricotta comes from whey, and this is made from acidified milk. It's really a simple fresh cheese, as simple as it gets, and you've maybe heard of it referred to as farmer's cheese or paneer. Whatever you want to call it, it works just like ricotta, and it's delicious, loaded with calcium and protein, and...delicious. And easy!

I made a bigger recipe of it so I could make a double recipe of this gnocchi. Every time I've made it, I've gotten less maybe 30 or 40 percent less cheese than the recipe says I will--so plan accordingly.

Realness: some of Kamal's dough hit the floor and didn't get included in the finished dish. However, he did turn out maybe six or seven (im)perfectly lovely gnocchi, so he totally still contributed.

And here's the gnocchi recipe, also from Serious Eats. Messy, but not difficult or very time-consuming. (It took us more than 30 minutes, for sure, but since one of us is three-and-three-quarters years old, that might account for some of the extra prep time.)

Plated and pret a manger

How I finished the dish: tossed some pieces of boneless chicken with a little flour, cooked them through in a heavy skillet, took them out of the skillet, briefly cooked trimmed asparagus in the same skillet, took those out and put them on top of the chicken, deglaced the pan with some homemade hard cider, added some heavy cream and homemade chicken stock and freshly-grated parmesan, and tossed everything together with the cooked gnocchi and a big drizzle of good olive oil. I meant to add a little bit of the gnocchi cooking water to the cream sauce, and I even saved it out before draining the pot, but then I forgot. It was still just lovely.