Nuthin' but Gnocchi

Monday nights aren't the best for providing a labor intensive meal. Eric is busy with work until the early evening hours and I am often busy with Darling Desserts once I'm off work. And yet, I still have to cook dinner. This Monday evening I decided to try something new.

I bought some gnocchi over the weekend at Ozark Natural Foods. I had a choice between spinach flavored gnocchi and tomato flavored gnocchi, and I thought the tomato flavor would go well with a tomato sauce. Gnocchi are delicious, fluffy little bites of potato dumpling, which are a virtual blank slate for any flavor. Instead of having the gnocchi with a sauce, I decided to make it into a type of casserole.

I chopped up some yellow bell pepper, zucchini, crimini mushrooms and shallots and quickly sauteed them in olive oil while I cooked the gnocchi in salted boiling water for about three minutes.

Once the gnocchi were cooked and the veggies softened but not mushy, I layered them in a small casserole dish between layers of our favorite tomato sauce and a mixture of mozzarella and paremesan cheeses. After 20 minutes in the oven, the finished product was the perfect way to end a Monday: soft, fluffy gnocchi flavored with fresh veggies, tomato sauce and plenty of melted cheese. Who could say no?