Heirloom Caprese Avocado Salad

Aren't these heirloom tomatoes beautiful! This was an heirloom tomato, fresh mozzarella, pesto, and baby greens with balsamic vinegar.

Gnocchi alla Romana

Most people by now are familiar with gnocchi, Italian dumplings. Here, we are most familiar with boiled potato gnocchi, however, Gnocchi alla Romana is baked semolina and cheese dumplings. I have made gnocchi so many times successfully, that I thought when Brian and I first started dating that it was something I could really wow him with. I read a different recipe than this one, and I thought I'd try a different technique, and it didn't work. I was so embarrassed! I ended up making spaghetti! How lame! I did have a caprese salad with heirloom tomatoes, so it kind of made up for it.

This recipe is the best. So cheesy goodness.

Gnocchi alla Romana

2 cups milk
1/4 cup unsalted butter
1 1/4 cups semolina flour
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons heavy cream (sometimes I use half and half)
2 eggs (original recipe says 1 egg and 2 yolks)
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted
more grated Parmigiano-Reggiano

Bring milk and butter to a boil in a large sauce pan. Add semolina and all-purpose flour. Stir over low heat until absorbed, and continue to stir until mixture is rolling off the sides of the pan (about 5 minutes). Remove from heat, add the cream, eggs, Parmigiano-Reggiano, and stir until smooth. Season to taste (salt, pepper, nutmeg, etc). On a sheet of wax paper, spread to 1/2 inch thick. Cool for 30 minutes, then cut into rounds with a round cookie cutter. Put in baking dish (overlap like scallops if you don't have room to lay each piece out individually), drizzle with melted butter and grate more Parmigiano-Reggiano over top. Bake 20-45 minutes, until golden brown.

This time I served it with a tomato basil salad (basically, you just toss together chopped tomatoes and fresh basil, add dash of red wine vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper) and sauteed spinach. I found a recipe in an Italian cook book, but I just improvised it... I sauteed chopped onion and garlic in olive oil, added pine nuts, and then spinach, nutmeg, red wine vinegar, salt, pepper, Parmigiano-Reggiano, and raisins.