Cast of characters... half of an onion, jalapeno, salsa, white rice, oil, shredded cheddar cheese, corn tortillas, tomato bouillon, chicken bouillon (not pictured), enchilada sauce, a tomato and cilantro (optional and not pictured)...


Dice up the onion... you can use a whole medium onion if you like a lot of onions... If you have access to fresh jalapenos, just buy one or two (unless you want more spice, I never use more than one) and clean them and dice them up as well.

Next you will want to put two table spoons of oil into a deep skillet or a pot over medium heat. I use a skillet that is two inches deep, probably ten inches wide. Heat oil slightly, not to where it wants to explode when you throw something in there, just enough to where it moves around in the pan easily. Add one and a half cups of rice and stir occasionally to keep it from burning. Making Spanish rice is an art, I swear. Half the time I make it, it's fabulous and sometimes it flops, it's like the first pancake, except you don't get to make two :-) See how the rice is starting to turn white, that's what we want.

Now we are going to add the onions and jalapenos. You can add a diced fresh tomato here as well if you like, but we are going to add salsa later so you don't have to. You'll want to stir almost constantly because the onions and tomato will want to stick and you don't want to. Also, at this point, everything's gotten pretty hot so you want to keep it from burning. Your rice should start to brown a little, but not too much. Maybe two or three minutes of stirring before we add the bouillon.

You want one cube of chicken bouillon and one cube of tomato bouillon. Mush them up with your stirring spoon as quickly as possible and get them mixed in. As soon as you do, you may notice everything is wanting to stick at this point, add three cups of water, stir it all up and lower the heat to medium low.

Now I have a theory that you should only have the rice covered up about three fourths of the time that you are cooking it so that it doesn't end up mushy. I want it cooked all the way but not too much. So I usually uncover mine several times through out the process and check on it. When I think it's time, I leave the lid off so the rest of the liquid can escape, like I said, it's an art. In the bottom left photo, you can see what the consistency of the rice was when I uncovered it. I added 1/3 to 1/2 cup of salsa to it and stirred it up and lowered the heat to low to cook the remaining liquid out of it.

Now, while you were letting the rice cook, you needed to be starting the enchiladas. For this, you will want a 9x13 glass pan. It doesn't have to be glass, but it's better this way. Trust me. Poor a third of the can of enchilada sauce into the pan and make sure it is coating the bottom.
Wrap about fifteen tortillas into a few paper towels and microwave them for about two minutes. You want them to be hot enough to be pliable but not so hot that you make them hard. If you roll it, it shouldn't break. In each tortilla, put about two tablespoons of cheese and roll it up and set it in the pan. You can do two layers of enchiladas for a total of thirty. Drizzle remaining sauce over enchiladas and then sprinkle with cheese.

Bake in the oven at 350 for about twenty minutes or until the cheese on top is melted and you are confident that they are hot and then EAT! SOOOO good :-)

Labels: cooking, recipes, sisters, stuff I like

(for two servings)
1 tbl olive oil
1 leek, roughly chopped
1/3 red bell pepper, diced
1 head of kale
2 tbl basil pesto
2 tbl almond milk, unsweetened
1 package soba rice noodles

Heat olive oil over medium heat and saute leeks and bell peppers for about five minutes. Lower heat to medium/low and add kale, stirring occasionally until tender. I added some white pepper, herbs de Provence, celery salt and a little garlic powder here, you can spice as you'd like.
Add two tablespoons of basil pesto (I make mine with basil, pumpkin seeds, garlic and olive oil) and a few table spoons of unsweetened almond milk, more if you want it more sauce like.
Serve over rice noodles.

Labels: cooking, recipes, stuff I like

Ok, so I don't think you can say "being" when you are entering your second week BUT I have to say that I could seriously see this as a lifestyle change for me permanently. It wasn't hard like I thought it would be.
Whenever one considers a diet change, you always see yourself with the little food journal and a calorie calculator and you know it will be work.
But not so much for this one... I had to change what I buy at the store and the fact that Amanda and Trin are not on board blows because I have to make more than one dinner but as far as will power? Cake. Well, cake with no eggs anyway.
There are a gazillion awesome websites out there where I can find recipe ideas but with the exception of baking, it isn't rocket science. Substitute soy, almond, coconut or rice milk for just about everything calling for milk... and so far, there hasn't been anything I can't use ground flax in to cover for a lack of eggs in baking.
No meat? No problem. I don't even really miss it. The other day I was baking some chicken strips for Trin and Amanda and I didn't want to pop one in my mouth at all ;-)
Last night, I reheated a frozen brisket that The Cake Lady's husband made the last time we bbqed and as I was cutting it up for Amanda, it didn't bother me at all. Although I did stick my finger in the bbq sauce that he made to go with it because that shit is gooooooooood.
I can't do a freaking thing with tofu yet... how did something like tofu become intimidating?
The coolest thing? I can eat pretty much whatever I want and kind of feel guilt free about it. Second helping of salad? Yeah, well, it's SALAD. lol
Oh and I love cous-cous and quinoa a bunch!
Since I am only going into week two, I am not feeling secure enough to host my girl's night dinner with a vegan menu that will knock anyones socks off so we will be taking a break this weekend so I can make Chicken Spaghetti and a Mandarin Orange cake, both recipes from Mow's bag of old recipes that I finally finagled away from my Aunts who were keeping them hidden away.
I will be posting both recipes here with photos and reviews.

Labels: Amanda, Being Mommy, Being Vegan, cooking, Emilee, recipes, Triniti

I'm excited about this. I've been wanting to try it for a long time and never found the "right" time. We discussed it a week or so ago and started to get all the stuff we'd need and cut down on the meat and dairy in our lives over the last week.
I think we can do it.
So today for breakfast, I had a slice of toast with soy "butter" (which doesn't taste bad like I thought it would) and some malt-o-meal with maple syrup. And for lunch I had pita chips (my new fav) and a veggie burger on whole wheat with spinach and avacado. The avacado really helps with the whole no mayo thing.
Not sure what we are having for dinner yet but I am pretty sure it will be one of the soups I made over the weekend.
With the exception of cheese, I don't mind so much.
Almond milk is a killer substitute for regular milk and we use rice or soy milk for cooking.

I also cut out coffee when the girls went back to school.. not completely mind, just stopped drinking it daily. I find I still like a nice hot glass of it on Sundays when I am reading blogs in my pjs :-)

Labels: cooking, Emilee, my crazy life

At my last Halloween Party (you know, the party that confirms I've lost my mind every year?), Jiffinner brought a cheeseball shaped like a pumpkin.
It was super cute.
And, unlike all the other cheeseballs I've had in my life, this one was GOOOOOOOOD.
So on Friday when she and I went on the Mad Shopping Spree for Fairy's baby shower, we decided at the last minute to make one for the party. We got all of the stuff and then Saturday night, when Jiffinner came over to help with the food, we decided we couldn't have it be shaped like a pumpkin... we wanted it to be baby themed.
A bottle of sangria later, I was all BABY HEAD! BABY HEAD! Alas, Amanda and Jiffinner said heck no, that would be weird... instead, Jiffinner tried to sculpt a rattle out of cheese ball.

I'm all, "uuuhhh, shouldn't the rattle part be bigger and the shaft handle be skinnier?"


I practically had to leave the room.
Jiffinner says, "let's add the handle part and maybe it will look better..."
Jiffiner mentions a piercing and I did have to leave the room.


A much more rated G cheeseball.

Recipe:
16oz sharp cheddar cheese (buy the big block and shred yourself)
8oz cream cheese
8oz container chive & onion cream cheese
1tbsp paprika
1/4tsp ground red pepper

Mush ingredients together w/hands.

Labels: Being a Chic, cooking, recipes, soul sisters

It’s called my Girl’s Night Dinner... The last Saturday of the month, I am hosting dinner at my house. It was this crazy spark of an idea that I had while I was talking to Jiffinner on the phone late last year. I was undoubtedly complaining about the lack of visiting I get to do with all of my friends when she made the comment that if it weren’t for me pushing all of them all the time, we would probably never see each other.
This is partially because, I realized, I introduced all of them and partially because I am “the glue” as Jiffinner puts it. Can you believe that? It’s MY CRAZY that brings them all together. Woot!
So, I decided at the end of December, in a haze of spiked eggnog, feelings of utter relief that my obligatory family visiting had come to an end and abnormally cold weather that I, your loving blog authoress, would start cooking dinner for all of my girlfriends once a month. And before I snapped back to my senses, I sent out the first invitation with the PROMISE that this would be monthly. Ladies, I will be doing this EVERY MONTH, I PROMISE.
Thus signing my own contract.
And it was a loop-hole-less contract my friends.
I made sure.
Initially, I thought we would mix it up... have a movie night, a board game night, cocktail night, other things that end with ‘night’... but it turned out that dinner, dessert and copious amounts of alcohol and conversation really were the best way to go.
But I am getting ahead of myself.
Our first dinner was the last Saturday of January. I’m not sure who all I invited BUT in attendance, we had Jiffiner, The Cake Lady and Fairy. I almost had a heart attack. Thankfully, Jiffinner came early to help. I was in full freak out mode by the time she arrived and she couldn’t pour wine into me fast enough.
I can’t help it, I am a worrier.
I worry about not having enough time, having too much time, burning the food, undercooking the food, whether people will have anything to talk about, if my house is clean enough, if anyone will show up, if too many people will show up, if it will be boring, if I have enough booze... If it can even cross my mind, I assure you, I have freaked out about it.
That’s why they make anti-anxiety pills and prescribe them to me.
Of course, with all of the freaking out that I was doing about this inaugural dinner event, I had done something else that I do too much of – I had overbooked myself. You see, dear reader, I have this idea in my head that I can accomplish anything. And I think it is correct. Assuming I could figure out a way to make more hours in the day. It is the whole not enough time thing that always kicks my ass.
So, as if FREAKING OUT about the dinner wasn’t enough, I had also divvied my children up to various friend’s houses to get them out of the way and then, I had made plans for after the dinner since, well you know, I wasn’t going to have any kids.
It’s truly amazing I didn’t have a heart attack.
But the short version is that I was pretty disappointed in the way the first dinner turned out. And it was all my fault. I tried to do way too much. I tried to make food that took too long and was too hard and untested, I made it to where I had to do too much running around that day so I was crunched for time and I made stupid boy plans for afterwards that had me super preoccupied and unable to just enjoy myself. And, the girls (at least the older two), didn’t want to leave... they are homebodies and it made me feel guilty that I had sent them away for the night. I decided I wasn’t doing it that way again.
I don’t think I could have handled the stress of doing it that way again.
So, the following month, I scratched boys off of my list and told Amanda and Emilee that they could stay home but had to hang out in their rooms. My girl Mary cooked and I made dessert and it was SO nice. So much more mellow and enjoyable and for the most part the girls stayed out of my hair.
March was the month I went from three guests to four and started inviting a few more friends. It was also the first Horror Movie Night for the girls. Each girl invited a guest and had pizza and brownies and scary movies. March was the month where I felt like I had figured it out. March was the first month where I really thought to myself, this is GREAT.
This past Saturday was the fourth consecutive dinner party at my house. And I can honestly say that this last dinner party was the first one where I was totally calm (or as totally calm as I am capable of being). I didn’t stress (too much) about who was going to show up, I didn’t stress about the food (which DIDN’T turn out right), I didn’t stress about the kids or the conversation. I just had a great time.
I plan on living in Texas for approximately another six years and I can say right now that I fully anticipate having dinner at my house the last Saturday night of every month from now until then because it is truly such a wonderful evening of food and friendship and it reminds me, every month, of exactly how lucky I am to have such amazing people in my life.

Labels: Being a Chic, cooking, soul sisters, stuff I like

The other night I made salmon.
My kids were gone and I had one in the fridge and it had been calling my name. And the brown rice in my cabinet was singing "me toooooo"....
So I threw my brown rice into my rice cooker (one part rice to three parts liquid) and took the salmon out.
I took a baking sheet that The Cake Lady had sent me home with the other day and drizzled olive oil all over it and sprinkled salt and pepper on it.


Then I took my beautiful salmon friend and laid him ever so nicely on the cookie sheet. The one that belongs to The Cake Lady. I didn't realize after I cooked the salmon that there would forever be an imprint of the salmon on her cookie sheet. I am sorry TCL. Please forgive me?


Then I grab the lemons.
I [heart] lemon.
I [heart] lemon a lot.
I zested two lemons and rubbed the zest on both sides of my salmon.


And then I squeezed the juice from one lemon ALL OVER the salmon.


Then, sliced lemons inside.
I also put about a third a stick of butter on the inside.
Butter + Lemon + Salmon = HEAVEN


Then I took the remaining slices of lemon and put them on top and sprinkled with salt and pepper...


Ok, so the real reason I was cooking?
I had to try out my new stove.
My new stove that has electricity and buttons.
*sigh*


My new stove that has a WINDOW.
*double sigh*


I covered the salmon and cooked for about twenty minutes at 325F.
And when it came out it was all pretty...
TCL - did I mention I was sorry about the fish imprint on your cookie sheet?


Yum.

Labels: cooking, recipes

I hate grocery shopping.
It's no secret to those of you who know me... I try and only go every other Friday and occasionally I can stretch it even more if I really try. And I do.
So, I should have gotten groceries this past Friday but shot the grocery store my not so friendly finger as I drove by and decided we would eat cereal all weekend if it meant I didn't have to freaking shop.
This meant I had to get super creative over the weekend because, well, let's face it... your kids aren't going to eat just cereal all weekend no matter how much you try.

I knew I had all of the stuff I needed to make salmon patties so I logged onto Tasty Kitchen to see what the brilliant minds over there had posted and I found this fabulous recipe which I happened to have everything I needed to make.
Score!

And now, I feel like I really need to share this with you.
Why?
Three reasons:
1. Soooooooooooo good.
2. Pretty easy.
3. Inexpensive.

Here is what you need for the whole thing:
2 strips bacon (I used turkey bacon... Melissa d'Arabian is a really wonderful cook... she does a show called Ten Dollar Dinners which I TIVO religiously. I don't always like the idea of some of the stuff that she makes but her salmon patties and her Shrimp Scampi are SUPER good.)
1/4 cup chopped onion
1 egg
1/2 cup mayonnaise
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/2 lemon, zested
1 (14-ounce) can wild salmon, checked for large bones
1 baked or boiled russet potato, peeled, and fluffed with a fork
1/4 cup bread crumbs
2 tablespoons grated Parmesan
Freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 Tablespoon Olive Oil
3 cloves Garlic
7 cups Low-Sodium Vegetable (or Chicken) Broth (I had to use boullion because I was out of broth)
¾ teaspoons Kosher Salt
½ teaspoons Crushed Red Pepper Flakes (I used cayenne pepper because it turns out it is the same thing and I was out of flakes - don't be scared of the spice it is EXACTLY the right amount of spicy-ness)
1 pound Angel Hair Pasta Or Pasta Type Of Your Choice
1 can (15.5 Oz. Can) Chickpeas, Drained And Rinsed
1 cup Flat-leaf Parsley, Chopped
½ cups Grated Parmesan

What I love about this is that I had pretty much all of this on hand and would have just about all of it on hand on any given day. One thing about Melissa d'Arabian's show is that she really gives you some good staples for keeping in your fridge or pantry so that you can make just about anything by adding just a few extra ingredients. Because of her I always have: garlic, lemons, parsley, cilantro, bacon in the freezer, onions, breadcrumbs and parmesan. I can't even begin to tell you the things you can pull off if you always have those on hand. ALSO at Sam's Club you can buy a two pound chunk of parmesan for ten bucks!!!

Here is the recipe for the chick-pea pasta. If you like chick-peas, make this. In fact if you don't know if you do or not, make this. It is really very good.


Here is the recipe for the salmon cakes. First of all, I use light mayo and two potatoes because I think it is too liquidy to hold together right. I also use more than a quarter cup of breadcrumbs. If any of you know a good way to bake these, I'd love to know about it because frying them is messy.

Ok people, there you go. Go and eat and enjoy :-)

Labels: Being Mommy, cooking, recipes, stuff I like

I usually buy my chicken at Sam's Club.
You can get a ten pound bag of boneless-skinless frozen chicken breasts for $22.00.
Yesterday when I went grocery shopping though, I was really hoping I wouldn't have to go to Sam's.... I was really hoping I'd find a good deal on chicken at HEB (our local grocery chain).
And you know what?
I totally did.
First of all, regular boneless skinless chicken breasts were on sale for $1.99 a pound. PERFECT I thought. That is going to save me a trip to Sam's for today.
But then, my little school skipping daughter says, "hey Mom, look at these, they are marked down."

The "this" she was referring to was the all natural chicken breasts that sit next to the processed, additives added chicken I was buying.


Here's the thing, dear reader, I love organic. I love all natural. I buy it whenever I can possibly manage to because I know it's better for us. But most of the time, it is twice the price and I just can't afford all that.
This time it wasn't twice the price, it was less than the regular chicken I had been about to buy. Why? Because it's sell by date was two days away.
I care not for sell by dates because I freeze everything in my trusty stand alone freezer in the laundry room.
When I started loading up, I almost chickened out (pun so totally intended) because I saw that about half of them were bone in, skin on. Now, I can debone a chicken breast pronto, and I will if I need to. But mostly, I am all about convenience. I don't want to have to mess with it all.
I hesitated.
And then I had the shocking realization that by buying these, I would not only save money on the chicken, but I could also cross the organic, four dollars a quart chicken stock I had on my list off. Why? Because I could make my own.

Here is the break down of the cash:
I bought 19.57lbs of chicken for $28.67, roughly $1.50 a pound!
(That is almost twice the amount of chicken I would have got at Sam's for only six bucks more!)
Additionally I was able to make almost a gallon of all natural chicken stock using the bones and all of my veggie scraps. A gallon of all natural chicken stock would have cost me about $16.00 at the store.

So, as you can see - I SAVED.

BUT what did I do with all of it?
Well, first I took it all off the bone and removed the skin. I had three large bowls. One for the skin (which I don't use or keep), one for the bones (for the stock) and one for the chicken.

Once I had it all separated, I threw away the skins and put the bones on to cook in a big pot of water.


Then I had to figure out what to do with the chicken.

In a few quart sized bags, I put about six cloves of minced garlic...


and a half a cup of buttermilk and about eight chicken breasts cut into two inch chunks. This will be for me to fry chicken nuggets with later. Labeled and into the freezer it goes.


I then cut the whole breasts in half, length-wise, creating two smaller but still whole chicken breasts. (I find that the girls and I can very rarely eat a whole chicken breast by ourselves.) Then I grabbed the bottle of Italian dressing I had bought just for this very purpose...


And put about six to eight of them into a labeled bag headed to the freezer....


Then I put the remaining chicken, six to eight breasts at a time, into quart sized bags unseasoned (I don't know what I might want to do with them later)...
By the time I was done, I had EIGHT bags of chicken in the freezer and three breasts left out for the dinner I was making that night.

I went through my veggie drawer and grabbed anything that was about to get bad and chunked it into the pot, I also started cleaning all of the vegetables I had bought, throwing their stems and extra parts into the stock. Additionally, I cleaned up the kale I was using for my two experiment dinner/snack items I was making that night and threw the kale stems in.
This is what it all looked like when I turned it off to cool.


It smelled amazing. The girls kept coming in to tell me as much. I let it cool for about an hour and then strained it and poured it into a gallon pitcher. I wanted it to cool completely before I put it into bags and into the freezer.

In the midst of all of this I cooked two different recipes which I will be posting later and I also prepared beef in a marinade for something I will make later this week and froze it as well as a meatloaf which I also made and froze.
Pictures got scarce about four hours in ;-)

Labels: Being Mommy, cooking, shopping

This post should be titled: How I didn't follow the rules while attempting to duplicate Olive Garden's Chicken Gnocchi Veronese recipe.
For starters, I didn't EVEN have time for the two hour marinade time the chicken required since I decided to make this yesterday right before I left work. I get off of work at 3:30p. So I ran to the store to get a few things that I didn't have at home that I needed for this. Like gnocchi... because I wasn't even about to attempt to make that from scratch on a Tuesday.
I am not Super Woman people.
I got home at 4:30p.
My girls get home, starving and cranky at 4:45p... Clearly, two hour marinade was not happening.
I threw the chicken in a bowl with the lemon, rosemary (mmmmmmm rosemary) and garlic (which I wanted to add SO MUCH MORE OF... I love garlic) as soon as I walked in the door.
Like before I even unloaded the groceries.

Then I got to work julienning (Is that even a word?) my zucchini...
Now, a month or so ago, Ryan over on This Is Reverb did a post about a breakfast casserole and he used a mandoline slicer.
That is what I retained: MANDOLINE SLICER
I did not retain: JULIENNE ATTACHMENT
So for Christmas, Emilee got me a plain old, no attachments mandoline slicer. I naively thought yesterday that I could use it for this soup.
Oh, the things I learn.

Now here is where I really just threw the directions out the window.
This recipe calls for two things that I did not want to do:
1 small Vidalia onion, chopped
1 red bell pepper, sliced (julienned)
Ok, let's start with the onion. While I was IN Wal-Mart, I called my mom. The conversion went like this:
Me: Hey, what the hell is a vidalia onion?
Mom: It's a sweet onion, like a Georgia onion.
Me: Uhm, ok. Do they have those at Wal-Mart?
Mom: Sure.
Me: [standing in front of the onion selection] Uh... what color are they?
I usually buy one of the three major onion types depending on what I am using it for: Yellow, White, Purple
I didn't know Yellow = Sweet.
Now I do.
Additionally, onions make me cry when I cut them.
A LOT.
So, I usually try and scam a daughter into doing it for me... usually Amanda because she says if she chews gum, her eyes won't water. And guess what! I have gum she can chew. But here was the dilemma: I needed the onions VERY. FINELY. CHOPPED. so that the daughters wouldn't bitch about them being in the soup and I knew Amanda would do a rough chop so I wasn't sure how to proceed.

Then I looked over at the stupid red bell pepper. Here's something you may not know about me - I loathe and abhor bell peppers, any color. I know that when a recipe calls for them, it is important to include them because they bring flavor, but I don't want to bite into them.
Not at all.

So, as it happens, I received a Bullet Express for Christmas. I love my Bullet Express. We use it just about every day. And I had the brilliant albeit not following the recipe idea to throw my onion and red bell pepper into the food processor attachment and chop them up that way. Into teeny tiny pieces.
It didn't go down like that.
It turned them into an onion and bell pepper smoothie.
So, you know, do with that what you will.
I did what any fly by the seat of your pants cook would do and say Oh Well and moved on. I threw the zucchini into my oil and started to saute it. As it was cooking, I slowly added the onion and red bell pepper mix to it. It smelled heavenly.


As it was cooking, I mixed my heavy cream, ricotta cheese and parmesan together into a bowl and checked the directions.


And realized I had a problem.
The problem was two fold. First, I had doubled the recipe. Second, I didn't have a pan large enough to combine all of my ingredients. I had a pot, sure, but the recipe called for a pan.
I also realized I needed to start boiling some water for the gnocchi.
And start my chicken.
I did both simultaneously. Because I rock.
When the little gnocchi started to float, I poured them into my strainer and then took the pot I had cooked them in and put my cream and cheese mixture in it with my sauteed veggies and the gnocchi and turned it onto medium.


The chicken with the rosemary smelled so good.
It didn't brown though because I was cooking it too low.


I stirred the cream and veggie mixture pretty constantly to keep it from sticking or burning or exploding. As the cheese melted, it went through some interesting texture changes.


I added the chicken pieces as they cooked since I had crammed so many of them in there and all...


Then it was done... and so very good. We ate it with HUGE chunks of garlic bread with parmesan melted on it. There is no picture of that though because WE WERE HUNGRY.


I, being such a good follower of recipes and directions and rules, didn't add anything additional of course.


What? I didn't do that! Who put that picture there?
I would never do that... even if it's...


From the Olive Garden recipe website...


Ingredients
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
1 small Vidalia onion, chopped
1 red bell pepper, sliced (julienned)
½ zucchini, sliced, (julienned)
Salt to taste
4 chicken breasts, sliced in ½” strips
2 small branches rosemary
1 garlic clove, minced
Juice of ½ lemon

Veronese Sauce
1 cup Parmesan cheese, grated
½ cup ricotta cheese
14 fl oz heavy cream

Gnocchi
2 qt water
6 oz all-purpose flour
2 eggs
2 lbs russet potatoes
2 tsp salt
OR (if you are in a hurry and can't cook worth a crap, like me)
1 lb gnocchi (potato dumplings), cooked according to package directions

Procedures
NOTE: You may make your own gnocchi by following the steps below, or you may purchase them already made.

Gnocchi
WASH potatoes and place in water. Cook potatoes until soft (cook time will depend on size of potatoes). Remove potatoes from water and cool in refrigerator.
PEEL cooled potatoes and push them through a fine grater (rice grater) until mashed; do not over-mash potatoes or they will get tough.
COMBINE potatoes, flour and eggs in a mixing bowl. Mix well until dough does not stick to hands (add small amounts of flour at a time if needed).
DIVIDE dough into 4 sections. Roll out each section into a long rope. Cut each rope into ½” pieces. Push fork tines on each piece for the classic gnocchi appearance.
BRING water to a boil in a sauce pot. Drop in gnocchi and cook until they float.


Chicken & Sauce
COMBINE garlic, lemon juice, rosemary and chicken slices in a mixing bowl. Let marinate for at least 2 hours.
COMBINE Parmesan cheese, ricotta cheese and heavy cream in a mixing bowl and set aside.
HEAT sauté pan on medium high. Add extra virgin olive oil, onions, bell peppers, and zucchini. Saute until onions are translucent (do not brown).
ADD marinated chicken slices and cook until slices are brown on all sides and internal temperature is 165°F. Reduce heat and add sauce mixture. Bring to a simmer.
DRAIN cooked gnocchi and add to pan with chicken, vegetables and sauce. Stir to coat gnocchi with sauce.
SERVE gnocchi topped with extra Parmesan cheese.

Labels: cooking, recipes, stuff I like