Kristin

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Rhode Island, United States

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Italian love

Today was a fast day- I woke up late, so I only did about 15 minutes of ab exercises before getting ready for work. My quick breakfast was a huge choco-banana-berry smoothie, and I packed my food for the day as I was sipping on it!

I packed: A baggie of raw almonds, which I ate mid-morning; a can of Amy's black bean soup and some baby carrots I had for lunch, and an apple I snacked on mid-afternoon.

Work went by fast- there were a lot of signs to put up and a lot of customers, so time flew by!
Once I was done I headed over to belmont to pick us this baby for dinner:

Pancetta, otherwise known as Italian bacon, was the key ingredient to my fab dinner tonight!
During the afternoon I snacked on about 1/2 cup 1% cottage cheese and did some homework before making dinner.

I made a fantastic Italian dinner tonight! I cooked up the package of gnocci I picked up at the store the other day, and while that was boiling I sauteed some chopped pancetta in olive oil, added some black pepper and wilted some spinach in there. When the spinach was nice and cooked I added some sweet basil tomato sauce (about 3/4 cup) along with some parmesan cheese, added the drained gnocchi and let it simmer for a bit for the flavors to meld.

I thought I would only need a tiny portion because gnocchi is pretty filling...

but I went back for seconds (1/2 of the 1st portion) because it was sooo good! This whole dish made about 4 servings, theres leftovers for Tyler for tomorrow night because he tried it and liked it!!

Now I'm settling down for a bit with a second glass of red wine- I did a lot this weekend, so there won't be too much work for me tonight. Back in the grind for sure tomorrow morning!

6 comments:

LizNoVeggieGirl said...

Love the Italian feast!

Anonymous said...

Glad you had such a delicious day! I've never tried gnocchi, but yours looks so good! :)

Anonymous said...

I'll have to try your gnocchi recipe! Usually when I make it I just use a plain tomato sauce so your's sounds about 100x better!

jess said...

Congratulations on getting so much done; it's always great to be able to kick back and relax on a sunday! I always forget, is gnocchi pasta or potatoes? Iron Chef Batali tells me all the time but it just doesn't seem to stick ;) Draining pasta when it's still al dente and letting it finish in the sauce is the Best Trick Ever: SUCH a flavorful end product, you bet I woulda been in there for seconds too!! Have a great week!

Kristin said...

Jess,
Gnocchi is kind of both! They're potato dumplings, that taste a lot like pasta, but they're made with both potatoes and flour! I've wanted to make my own but they're a bit time consuming- the frozen kind worked out well, maybe some day I'll make my own!

Anonymous said...

What a delicious dinner! I love gnocchi!!