Olive Garden Inspired Chicken Gnocchi Soup

Chicken Gnocchi soup!  One of Sweet Girl's favorite soups is the Chicken Gnocchi soup at Olive Garden.  I've tried a few copy cat recipes, but they never got it just right, so I tinkered with it until I came up with a recipe that we all just love.  Please enjoy!

Olive Garden Inspired Chicken Gnocchi Soup

• 3 tablespoons butter
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 onion, finely diced
• 1/2 cup carrot, finely diced (or shredded from a package)
• 1/2 cup celery, finely diced (about two large stalks)
• 4-8 medium to large cloves garlic, minced, divided
• I Tablespoon each Kosher salt and freshly ground white pepper, plus more to add later
• 1 Tablespoon ground thyme (or fresh, if available. If using fresh, remove from stems and chop fine)
• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 2-3 cups cooked chicken, shredded or cut into bite sized pieces (see recipe below)
• 3/4 cup Pinot Grigio or Chardonnay
• 6 cups chicken broth (plus extra as needed)
• 2 pints half & half
• 2 (16 ounce) packages potato gnocchi
• ½ bag fresh baby spinach, stems removed
• freshly grated Parmesan and/or Romano, for serving

INSTRUCTIONS:
For the chicken:
• Remove skin of 6 chicken thighs, 4 chicken breasts, or any combination and place in a baking pan (Thighs are really good!)
• Sprinkle the pieces with olive oil and flip to coat.
• Season each piece with kosher salt, fresh ground pepper, thyme; flip pieces and repeat
• Coat the top of each piece liberally with half of the minced garlic.
• Cover with foil and bake at 350° for 25 minutes.  It’s OK if the meat isn’t completely finished cooking; it will finish in the soup.
• Shred or cut the meat into bite size pieces, removing extra fat and connective tissue.

For the soup:
• In a large soup pot or Dutch oven, heat the butter and oil together over medium heat.
• Add onion, carrots, celery and half of the garlic. Mix.
• Season with kosher salt, freshly ground white pepper, and thyme.
• Cook until tender over medium-low heat; about 10 minutes, stirring often.
• Sprinkle the flour over the vegetables, and cook 3 minutes, stirring often.
• Stir in the wine, then the chicken broth 1 cup at a time, followed by the half & half.
• Add the cooked chicken. Bring up to a simmer.
• After 10 minutes, add the gnocchi and stir. Cook until the gnocchi rises to the top.
• Add the spinach and simmer until the spinach is wilted, stirring often.
• If the soup seems too thick, add some more chicken broth to the consistency you like it.
• Season with salt and pepper to taste.
• Return to low and cook an additional 5-8 minutes to allow all the flavors to mix.
• Serve with grated cheese and garlic bread sticks.

Makes approximately 10-12 servings.  While leftovers do not freeze well, you can refrigerate for three days and it tastes wonderful! Recipe can also be halved.

Ramen Revolution

So last night was Girl Scouts, and I had to get Sweet Girl to her meeting in 30 minutes - and she needed to eat dinner first. Now, my daughter doesn't eat fast, so that meant I needed to cook fast. I had no time, and not a lot of ingredients laying around, what to do for dinner? Inspiration struck. We had leftover rotisserie chicken from the night before, a head of broccoli and some ramen noodles, so I came up with pan fried ramen noodles. If I do say so myself, it was pretty darn yummy - and fast! Because this is a basic process, you can change it up in anyway that works for you. No rotisserie chicken? Saute a frozen boneless chicken breast. No broccoli? Use green pepper, and so on.

Here's what I did:

In a 2 qt sauce pan, I put water, 1 head of broccoli cut into florets, and 2 packages of ramen noodles (without the flavor packets). I broke the block into quarters. Let them cook together; the water doesn't need to be boiling.

Then, in a large non-stick fry pan, I put a teaspoon of sesame noodles and dry-toasted them a bit. Then I added sesame oil, a couple turns of the pan. I then added about 2 teaspoons of garlic paste (you could use chopped garlic from a jar or fresh sliced or minced garlic - whatever you like). I took one package of the ramen soup spice (oriental flavor, in this case), and put half in the fry pan and half in the noodles and broccoli.

Next I added about 5 chopped green onions and a cup of shredded chicken and let that saute for a moment. By then, the noodles and broccoli were cooked, so I just grabbed a strainer spoon and spooned the noodles and broccoli in with the chicken and onions, keeping the pan on high and stir frying them together. I added a bit of the broth from the soup pan and fried to evaporate the broth and coat the noodles.

After a couple of minutes, I turned this out on to a plate and topped it all with a bit more sesame seeds, some Asian spice (red pepper flakes, ginger, etc.) and I would have thrown some cilantro on there if I'd had any.

Truly, this was about a 7 minute process from beginning to end. It took me longer to write this than it did to make it. It was so yummy, really inexpensive, and a big step up from simple ramen soup!

The family enjoyed it - and Sweet Girl was only 5 minutes late for Girl Scouts.

The Secret is the Sesame Oil... or Maybe Just the Sweet Girl

So I love to cook. And I love teaching my daughter how to cook. This week's lesson was homemade pork fried rice. Oooo, I love this dish! As fun as it is to make, it was so much fun explaining to Sweet Girl what I was doing with each step and why.

"OK, honey", said I, "I cooked this rice yesterday. Nice jasime rice - it is so yummy. But you need to cook it the day before, or at least the morning before." To which she asked, "well, why not the half-hour before?" - and then we discussed the merits of cool, dry rice in oriental cooking.

Then we moved on to the scrambled eggs. Four eggs scrambled in vegetable oil and then set in a bowl on top of the frozen peas to begin to thaw and cook them. Now, normally, she complains about the eggs in the rice, but because she got to scramble them up for me, she loved every bite (take note moms - this trick works wonders. Let them help you make it; it will suddenly become their favorite food).

We moved on to make sure the cilantro was chopped, the mushroom (just for her) cut into little chunks, the shredded carrots ready to go, and all the sundry bottles and jars lined up. With the misenplace in place, we were finally ready to begin putting it all together. After dry-toasting the sesame seeds, I let her saute the onions and garlic in the sesame oil. As she stirred, she commented on how good the scent was. I explained that the oil came from the pressed sesame seeds. Something that was so simple and matter of fact to me was a revelation to my 9 year-old! Then ginger, asian spice mix, a touch of red pepper flake, pork, veggies, rice... soy sauce. With each new spice addition, Sweet Girl wanted to taste test - well, not the red pepper flake! She even tried the sesame oil - just a drop - to see how the individual flavor became a part of the dish.

We got it all fried and served it up for ourselves and Daddy (along with mini chicken eggrolls from Sam's Club - Yummy!). You know, I've made this dish so many times, but I have to say that after making it with Sweet Girl, it tasted the best it ever has!