http://www.vons.com/IFL/Grocery/Recipe-Search?contentURL=http%3A%2F%2Frecipes.safeway.com%2Frecipe%2F126942%2Fricotta-gnocchi.aspx#iframetop

I was searching for gnocchi recipes online, and I ended up finding this great recipe at the vons website of all places.  Instead of a typical potato gnocchi, this was a ricotta cheese gnocchi, hence the name, duh lol. Every time someone talks about homemade gnocchi, it always bring up this vision in my head of this little old italian grandma slaving for hours in the kitchen, and the tasks seems impossible unless you fall into that category, which I do not.

So I was a little leery in trying to make gnocchi, but this particular recipe was very simple.  I don't have the greatest cutting board so rolling the gnocchi was a little bit difficult for me since my cutting board is a thin plastic thing that is somewhat bent lol.  Since I was having trouble with that, I think I ended making the gnocchi pieces a little bit too thick, but they still cooked through quite nicely.

Amazingly, the sauce for the dish was quite good for such little ingredients as all it was was garlic cooked in olive oil with a can of diced tomatoes.  Who knew a tomato sauce recipe could be so easy and good?  So this dish turned out great... so great, my husband even had seconds lol!  I have been waiting for him to get seconds since I started this adventure, and I finally got my wish with the gnocchi! :)

Grade: A+

I couldn't pass up the cheddar chicken tender leftovers from yesterday!  I will continue my cooking adventure tomorrow, and have sweet sweet dreams of cheddar chickens tonight lol

http://www.gourmet.com/recipes/2000s/2006/10/cheddar-chicken-tenders-with-wilted-spinach

These by far have to be the best thing that I have made yet!  My husband is not so sure that this dish can be called gourmet since it involves Cheez-its, but it was on the gourmet website so I contend that it is!

I would liken this dish to a fancy shake-n-bake recipe, but much more delicious.  There were a couple of things that I did slightly different, and one of those items being the chicken tenders.  I couldn’t find specific chicken tenders so I bought chicken breasts and cut them into thin slices instead.  Also, I put the cheez-its in a Ziplock bag and smashed them rather than putting them in the food processor.  That made for a little bit bigger breaded pieces but it still worked out well. 

Also, I didn’t use a big enough pot for the wilted spinach so I only cooked up about half of the called for spinach.  Although, I discovered my pot was too small after I had melted the butter so there was twice the butter on the spinach lol.  Even with a little too much butter, my husband commented on the fact that it was the best spinach he has ever had :)

So other than a couple of small tweaks, I would highly recommend making this dish.  I keep going back for bites of the left over’s, and I’m not sure how long they are going to last! (I think I might make this dish again very soon)

Grade: A+

So after going out both days of the weekend, there was no time for making food other than having leftovers.  Therefore, I have decided that the weekends will be just for leftovers, and I will cook new dishes during the weekday that way I can enjoy having the few hours it takes to make something fancy on the weekend to going out ;)

Cozy Oatmeal

http://www.countryliving.com/recipefinder/cozy-oatmeal-3008

This oatmeal was a super super super easy dish to make, and it only took about 15 minutes altogether.  I was running a little late today so I was pressed for time in getting this ready for lunch, and I didn’t have time to figure out how to shred the apple so I just cut the apple into little pieces instead.  I think it turned out quite well and next time I’ll have to look up how you shred apples, but the oatmeal overall was excellent.

This an easy, quick, and convenient oatmeal for anyone in a hurry or even if you have time to make for breakfast or even lunch :)

Grade: A

Roasted Potatoes

http://www.gourmet-cookie-bouquets.com/design/2010/05/28/roasted-potatoes-brunch-recipe/

MMMmmMMMMmmmMMM these potatoes were delicious!  This dish would be perfect to compliment any breakfast/brunch food or even like a dinner steak or something along those lines.

The recipe was pretty easy to make, but it does a take a little while to peel the potatoes although I just realized that the recipe didn’t call for them to be peeled lol.  That would make things a lot easier and quicker probably (I can read directions, I swear!) :)

Anyway, this is for sure a recipe that I am going to make again and recommend to anyone who needs a potato side for a meal.   Scruptious!

Grade: A+

Beef and Asparagus

http://www.gourmetbeefrecipes.com/BeefRecipes/BeefAndAsparagus.htm

So after my disastrous failure yesterday with the potato bisque, I decided I would try a gourmet dish that involved beef.  That way, in a worst case scenario, I figured I could at least eat the beef even if the dish wasn’t very good. 

Well this dish actually turned out to be quite edible (which is a big step up from yesterday), and it was a pretty simple dish to make.  It just took me a little while to cut everything up, but once it started cooking it took maybe 20 minutes total to be done. 

The one thing that this dish was missing was a really good flavor in the beef.  This recipe didn’t call for any spices (which I thought was odd), and it seems that this recipe relies heavily on the sherry and the cornstarch mixture which makes the beef kind of bland.  I’m not sure what I could add to the dish to give the meat flavor, but if there was more flavor to the beef, I would definitely make it again.  Since the beef was somewhat bland, I think I will pass on making this one again even though it made a decent dinner.

Grade: B

White and Wild Rice Pilaf

http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/white-and-wild-rice-pilaf/Detail.aspx

To compliment the beef, I made this white and wild rice pilaf dish.  This was super easy to make as all it really required was cutting up vegetables and sticking it in a pot to cook.  This is definitely one easy way to get a lot of your daily dose of vegetables lol.

I will definitely make this dish again, but I think I am only going to use ½ an onion instead or cut the onion into smaller pieces as there was a little bit more onion in the mix than I would like (I typically put in about ½ the onion that the recipe calls for except for in this project I am using the full recipe amounts.)

Grade: A

I am off of work tomorrow so instead of making dinner I will be making some sort of (hopefully) delicious gourmet lunch.

Potato and Herb Bisque <- should called more like "Onions with some potatoes and herbs"
http://www.professionalrecipes.com/recipes/soups-stews/potato-herb-bisque.html

What can I say about this recipe but BLEH!  I will never make this one again.
1. It took a long time to prep and and cook
2. It was flavorless.
3. T wanted to gag
My husband also suggested that I never make it again, but he didn’t have a problem eating it and gave it a grade of a C.  I on the other hand had to go out and get some actual food!

Grade: F

Garlic Bread
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Garlic-Bread-106583

The garlic bread that I made to compliment the bisque turned out quite good there so at least the entire cooking escapade wasn’t a complete failure.  This recipe makes a great addition to any meal! 

Grade: A

Chicken Curry Leftover Report = Grade A+ 

http://www.gourmet.com/recipes/2000s/2007/02/chicken-curry

I found this gourmet chicken curry off of the gourmet.com website, and it looked like a dish I might be able to make lol.  I had a few problems right off the bat with finding some of the ingredients.  Since I do not live in the south, the Okra took a lot of hunting around the market to find (On a side note, is Okra really gourmet?).  Also, both supermarkets I went to were out of coconut milk, and after consulting the collective internet, I substituted the coconut milk for coconut water.   I also substituted olive oil for the vegetable oil since I was out of vegetable oil.

After my fussing with finding ingredients was over, I finally got to cooking.  The dish was actually rather simple to put together, and took me only about 40 minutes altogether.  I am a bit of a lightweight when it comes to spice hot food (On a scale of 1 to 10, I typically order a 3 at restaurants), but this dish had a good flavor with a little bit of spice.  My husband rather enjoyed the food, and he told me that it would definitely be something he would be down for having again (whew, past that test!). 

Overall I would make this recipe again and would recommend it to anyone else to try.  The one thing that I will change next time is use chicken breast and cut it into smaller pieces rather than use the chicken thighs, but otherwise, it was delicious :)

Grade: A

Since the Gun Range Project is going to take me awhile to complete, I was searching for a project for the month of March.  After getting a lot of enthusiasm from my husband on this idea, I have decided to cook a different gourmet food dish for dinner every day this month.  Let’s just say that I have very little experience in cooking, and my cooking usually involves putting pre-made cookie dough in the oven.  My husband is usually the one who cooks in my family so this should be rather interesting :).  Hopefully, whatever I cook up is at least edible otherwise the Papa John’s pizza delivery guy will be making frequent appearances at my home this month!