Saturday, March 27, 2010

Gnocchi!!!!



This was a super fun recipe!! Olive garden makes a delicious gnocchi. I searched for gnocchi recipes and honestly, it seemed too much work. (Giadda's recipes stand out, but again, when you want a quick dish, it seemed too much). I tried to model this gnocchi after Olive Gardens Recipe.
I bought premade potato gnocchi from the store and cooked it per the box. Mean while, I cooked zucchini (peel on) red, green, and yellow peppers, with some onion and garlic, on the stove with a hint of olive oil and water, to cook it tender. Just a hint of water, to save draining.
In another pot, I cooked chicken tenders, in a few tbsp. of olive oil, cut bite size with onion, garlic and salt. (you could use chicken breast, but the tenders cut up super fast and result in size proportionate) .
In my final pot I made a cream sauce, similar to alfredo. There are a few ways I make a cream sauce, some call it a bechamel sauce.
Sauce: Always start with 2 tbs melted butter, 2 tbs flour. Let the flour cook out a bit, 1-2 mins. (you can up the butter and flour, if feeding more, but KEEP it proportionate), this is your thickener.
Variations:
Then add 3-4 cups cream OR
add 2 Cups Chicken Stock (or favorite stock) with 2 cups 1% milk. (I haven't tried it with other milk variances).
I added kosher salt and garlic (3-4 cloves) (grated over a plane, to avoid chunks of garlic).
And then tossed it all together.

Variations on cooking, and the cream sauce:
Some people don't have fresh onion and garlic on hand as I do. You can use onion salt or garlic salt, remember the "salts" have a more potent flavor then the "powders"
When I am making an alfredo sauce, I do as I explained, but only with a light cream or heavy cream. I add 1/4-1/2 cup of parmasean to the mixture. Some people prefer freshly grated, some prefer the typical store bought Parmesan.
I personal find, that while fresh grated is great over the top at the end, the mince store bought, meshes better in the sauce. Again, its trial and error and what each prefers best.

I hope everyone tries this recipe, or uses the alfredo sauce recipe in their cooking! Enjoy!!

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