The One With A Kitchen Success

It’s no secret that I’m a bit of a “Betty Crock” in the kitchen. But believe it or not, I finally had a success (actually two!) when I tried some new dinner recipes.

The first one was this zucchini and sundried tomato risotto recipe. I’ve mentioned before that I’m terrible at making rice- I actually use ‘Success Rice in a Bag’ for all our white rice dishes. So, I was definitely concerned that the risotto would not end up with the right consistency. Luckily, it did and Brad even ate the leftovers! Add a new recipe to my tiny cookbook- check!

Then last week I found this ricotta cheese gnocchi recipe. It’s not where you use pre-packaged gnocchi (which Brad isn’t really a fan of), but for this recipe, you actually make the dumplings yourself.

I should point out that I’m a HUGE lover of gnocchi. I could seriously eat these potato dumplings in various sauces all the time. I remember eating these almost every night the first week I discovered this dish back in my Florence study abroad days. Brad, on the other hand, doesn’t prefer the large and heavy dumplings, but occasionally he’s open to the idea of eating mini or baked gnocchi- especially if it's from a restaurant.

But for this recipe, the dumplings would be made out of ricotta cheese, rather than potato, so I thought Brad might be a little more open to this dish. (Plus I could make them any size I/he wanted).

First hurdle was actually making the dumplings. Here’s a photo of them before being tossed into boiling water.


Second hurdle was the gnocchi rising to the top of the boiling water - indicating that they’re cooked - which they did! Last hurdle was to not ruin the homemade tomato, basin and garlic sauce. And I’m happy to report that all turned out well and it’s another recipe I can add to the books!