Blog posts seem to be a bit like buses; you don't see one for weeks and then there are half a dozen. Well, it's not quite that bad, but I've had a bit of a lull in imagination and inclination due I suspect from a rather hectic time on the barn conversion front than from any other palpable reason. Anyway, I have my baking and making mojo back, in part thanks to a new book 'The Homemade Flour Cookbook' by Erin Alderson of 'Naturally Ella' blog fame. I found a recipe for sweet potato and red lentil gnocchi on the internet which led me to this book and this evening we entertained family for tea and they were unwitting guinea pigs to a new culinary experiment of gnocchi in pesto sauce. The gnocchi are made with baked and mashed sweet potato, egg yolks, seasoning and red lentil flour. I used a mixture of red and green lentils due to a failure on the shopping front, and it made no difference except to the colour of gnocchi which should have been a bright orange colour and instead were speckled with green. The gnocchi were really quick to assemble even though I quadrupled the recipe in order to have plenty of spares to freeze for another day. I cheated with the pesto sauce and used a bought jar of pesto, although making pesto is really easy if you a) have the ingredients and b) have a food processor/blender. I really miss my herb garden (along with a proper kitchen, most of my kitchen gadgets, a decent oven....the list goes on). Anyway, to cut a warbling story shorter, the gnocchi were very tasty and enjoyed by all. For dessert I announced that we were having 'Floating Islands' which I made up to sound a lot more impressive than it actually was; it comprised some unsweetened lightly cooked (frozen) mixed berries with a coconut macaroon 'floating' on the top in each dish and liberally swirled with cream. The sweetness of the macaroons nicely counteracted the tartness of the berries, topped with the decadent loveliness of the thick cream. The coconut macaroons were an impromptu bake because when friend leave you home grown eggs you really don't want to waste any of it and I used 4 egg yolks for the gnocchi so a meringue type dessert was essential.