Ricotta Gnocchi

Last Monday we decided to go meatless for dinner. So I looked through my cookbook, "29 Minutes to Dinner Volume 2", and found the meatless section. After flipping past recipes for soup and tofu which I just did not feel like making, I found a recipe for "Ricotta Gnocchi". At first glance I was sure this recipe was far too fancy and difficult to make.

But it sounded so good and the picture was so tantalizing, I read the ingredients and there wasn't anything too fancy... then I read the instructions and I was amazed at how easy it was going to be to make this beautiful, fancy dish in just 23 minutes. I'm not kidding, it really took less than 30 minutes to make dinner!

So we set out for the grocery store for the two ingredients we did not have on hand: ricotta cheese and Parmesan cheese (block). That's it. Everything else I had on hand: flour, butter, olive oil, red pepper flakes, garlic and 1 egg. I left a couple things out, because that's how I roll. And I hate lemon as you may know, so I feel I had good reason. I picked up spinach because spinach is delicious and it sounded good.

Then Monday dinner time arrived. I began by preparing the simple dough in my batter bowl. I grated the parmesan, measured the ricotta and mixed them with the egg and flour. I used my Small Scoop to make the cutest little dough balls. I heated butter and olive oil in my non-stick pan and scooped the dough directly into the pan. I cooked each for two minutes and flipped them with my chef's tongs (coated in silicone to keep the pan safe) and cooked them another two minutes. As they cooked they flattened just a bit and looked kind of like small scallops when they were finished.

I removed them from the pan, added garlic and red pepper, and then tossed in a couple handfuls of fresh spinach leaves, just to coat and wilt a bit. I made a wilted spinach salad with our cheese gnocchi. Truth to tell, I had this ulterior motive since I purchased the spinach when we went out for cheese.

It was ridiculously delicious! My husband tried to confiscate mine and has requested this dish again and soon. I was so impressed with how simple and elegant this dish was and how quickly it came together.

How Hard Cider Leads to Jambalaya

For what seemed like hours Shane and I debated what I should cook for dinner. I offered him two choices: leftover vegetable soup OR rice and chicken. And he responded with, "How about just chicken?" I said, "What will we have with it?" He said, "I don't know, just chicken?"

So we finally ended up settling on rice and chicken. I sent him to the man cave to play Little Big Planet while I created dinner out of 1.5 cups of leftover rice and a chicken breast.

I started by dicing the chicken and putting it in to fry with a little olive oil, lightly seasoned with coarsely ground black pepper and sea salt. I added marjoram for good measure, you can never over-marjoram chicken. (Use basil if you don't have marjoram, they are similar but not quite the same.)

I cooked the chicken for a few minutes, then stirred/flipped it to fully cook all sides. I was a little frustrated by the chicken flipping itself back over so I covered it in chicken broth and covered the pan to promote more even cooking. After a few more minutes I added the rice and pressed 2 cloves of garlic into it and stirred again.

About this time a nice Woodchuck Hard Cider sounded delicious, and I also thought about the recipe I had been meaning to make that I found on my Nintendo DS game Personal Trainer Cooking. You see, I was making rice and chicken which just happen to be a couple main ingredients in jambalaya. To the DS I did go, I found the recipe and decided I was not going to put squid or prawns into my rice and chicken, mostly because I didn't have them. I did add chopped bell pepper, vidalia onion and canned diced tomato, as the recipe called for. The recipe called for celery but I hate celery so I added celery seed, I know they are nothing alike and taste nothing alike, but I still add celery seed to recipes calling for celery. It makes me feel like I'm at least trying to follow along. I also threw in a bay leaf, it seemed like a good idea.

I added 1/2 cup water and 1/2 cup hard cider (no wine, plenty of cider) and then since Shane has a cough and sore throat I omitted the chili peppers in favor of a few dashes of chili powder, 1 tsp of paprika and a healthy sprinkle of parsley. I tasted the rice and chicken turned jambalaya and added more black pepper and more hard cider, simmered about 10 minutes to reduce the liquid by more than half.

I tasted again, pronounced it delicious and called Shane for dinner. He burned his tongue, but loved it anyway! Even though I severely deviated from the recipe, what was in our bowls looked exactly like the picture, it was amazing.

By the way, I had an epic battle reattaching the v key in order to post this blog. I valiantly persevered to bring you this tale. Darn dirt under the keys, anyway!