As I told you last week, gnocchi is one of our favorite weeknight meals. Homemade gnocchi — both ricotta and potato — can easily be made during naptime and is so easy to cook up right before dinner. Sometimes I simply buy frozen potato gnocchi and combine it with a really great sauce. With a leafy salad on the side it is a complete meal and even fits nicely into my commitment to meatless Mondays (even if it is not Monday, we eat meat-free at least one day per week)!
This week I am teaming up with Bertolli to talk homemade gnocchi and sauces. They recently sent me this amazing homemade pasta kit and a gorgeous Creuset dish for making gnocchi. When it came in the mail I got right to work on their fabulous recipe for Gnocchi with Two Cheeses and Walnuts. We loved it! I’ve made homemade gnocchi before, but this little machine made it so much easier than the old method I used. I whipped up the dumplings during naptime and for dinner all I had to do was toss them with an easy Bertolli sauce to make the perfect weeknight meal. I promise you, dear readers, I will always be honest with you about products and this Bertolli sauce really was terrific. I often make sauces from scratch myself, but this one had tremendous flavor from the olive oil and garlic, without being overly sweetened and artificially flavored. Bertolli is well known for their commitment to sourcing amazing Italian ingredients and it shows here. I don’t know of another company that could properly produce a jarred olive oil sauce.
To properly compliment their sauces Bertolli suggests serving Barbera wine. I am not very familiar with it so I was glad to see this video and encourage you to watch it:
I am so pleased with how our rich baked gnocchi meal turned out and enthusiastically recommend it to everyone. I also highly recommend that you enter this awesome Bertolli giveaway for your own chance to win a terrific gnocchi and sauce kit from Bertolli!
The Bertolli pack includes:
- Bertolli coupon for a FREE sauce product
- Gnocchi Maker
- Gnocchi Board
- Le Creuset Au Gratin Dish
To Enter to Win:
1) Leave a comment describing your favorite make-at-home Italian-style meal.
2) For a second entry visit the Bertolli Facebook fanpage and up share a tip, story, recipe or photo from your favorite region in Italy. You do not need to have traveled to Italy to enter!
3) Sign-up for the Naptime Chef newsletter (upper left hand corner)
4) Like The Naptime Chef on Facebook.
5) Contest runs from July 23rd, 2011 at 6:59am through Saturday July 30th at 7:00am ET.
* This giveaway is being run independently. I received the pack from Bertolli on their dime and the winner must be located in the U.S. The opinions expressed about the recipe and Bertolli products are entirely my own.
[…] have got to come over and check out this amazing giveaway from Bertolli and my new favorite way to make gnocchi! […]
A simple antipasti meal with fresh baked bread, cheese, olives, fruit, tomato and wine is our favorite traditional Italian meal.
A simple pasta tossed with some veggies fresh from the garden. A little Parmesan on top and a nice glass of wine. On the deck, of course.
I don’t always have time to make homemade spaghetti sauce but it is easy to make when you remember to start it more than 15 minutes before dinner. So I use store bought and make garlic bread instead.
I know it’s basic, but I love to make homemade spaghetti and meatballs! Making your own sauce really makes a difference! Yum!
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I like to make a simple meat sauce because I almost always have the ingredients on hand: ground beef, onion, garlic, diced tomatoes and tomato sauce.
My kids love oven baked gnocchi with marinara sauce and great fresh melted mozzerella on top!!
I make a decent sauce. I really like to make lasagne though. I make two; one to serve and one to freeze. I’m curious about the gnocchi. I have some fresh ricotta to use. Hmmm…..
Polenta. I try to break my daughter’s pasta habit with polenta, fresh tomatoes and really good cheese. It’s fresh, healthy and in keeping with the kinds of food she likes to eat…but a bit different.
I love, love, love chicken parm. But to make it a little less fattening so I can eat it more often I make it with grilled chicken. The rest of the ingredients are so simple: lite pasta sauce, plum tomatoes, basil, and reduced fat mozzarella cheese. I also sprinkle it with panko when it comes out of the oven for that crunch…a trick I learned from Rocco DiSpirito. I serve it with some simple grilled veggies or the more traditional pasta. Yum!
definitely lasagne!
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My favorite Italian meal to make at home is spaghetti and meatballs. Not fancy, but very good.
My husband makes farfalle with a sauce that includes some or all of the following:
-fire roasted canned tomatoes (we like Muir Glen)
-mushrooms
-crispy bacon
-peas
-fish, crab or chicken
-basil
It is our favorite adaptable (because you can switch things out to appeal to different people), easy dinner.
I have been making chicken parm a lot the past few weeks, so tasty!
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My favorite Italian dish is homemade spaghetti & meatballs.
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I love making lasagna!
Eggplant parmesan will always have a place in my heart and kitchen, for sure – though I’ve always wanted to try my hand at gnocchi!
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My favorite Italian dish to make is sausage lasagna. I make it once a year, for my birthday (I do make my own birthday dinner!). It’s fattening, but soooo good!
I make an italian sausage lasagna with fresh mozzarella cheese and lots of fresh basil.
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I love pasta carbonara…so tasty but so fattening so I only make it for special occasions 🙂 I already receive your newsletter and I’m already a fan of your FB page.
Wow that looks lovely! I would love to have a plate of it as well as the serving dish. My favorite meatless Italian dish is stuffed seashells.
I love home made rotini with a simple tomato sauce.
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I just made tortellini with peas and mushrooms tonight. Meatless Monday! and I’m a facebook follower. :0
fresh heirloom tomato sauce in mid summer! garden tomatoes chopped w/ olive oil, fresh garlic, basil, a bit of hot pepper, salt and black pepper–let sit for a bit to meld flavor and toss with hot pasta in a heated bowl. Great with fresh mozzarella mixed in and parmesan on top. My tomatoes are almost ready for this yummy dish. It is the essence of summer in a dish.
Chicken milanese – pounded chicken breasts until they are nice and thin, then breaded with bread crumbs and parmesan cheese (50/50 split), and lightly fried in a frying pan. I then usually top with fresh grape tomatoes, some basil, and some mozarella… yumminess doesn’t get much better than this.
Our fav is a kale/gnocchi dish from Martha Stewart, but I’ve never made my own gnocchi…I can only imagine how much more delicious it would taste freshly made! Yum.
My favorite Italian meal has always been lazagna! I love the way it makes everyone feel homey and comfortable. I make it often for company and even my friends’ picky son loves it!
I love making spaghetti carbonara!
I love making spaghetti carbonara!
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My favourite make-at-home Italian-style meal would definitely have to be lasagna! There is a lot of work invovled but all those layers add up to be a wonderfully delicious dinner!!
Lasagna is my favorite!
Lasagna is my favorite!
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We love Calzone’s – my kids think I should make them every other day.
My favorite at-home Italian-inspired meal is a creamy mascarpone lemon sauce over spinach, sun dried tomatoes and linguini. Yum!
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Italy is so beautiful – the food is fantastic, gorgeous architecture, interesting history, lovely people – I can’t wait to go back!!!! Every meal is an experience and takes A LONG TIME but that is okay because you want to savor every delicious bite.
Would LOVE to win this, since I have never made gnocchi from scratch & have been contemplating same! ;~)
I love gnocchi with tomato basil pesto! If I have time I make my own ricotta gnocchi 🙂
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My favorite make-at-home Italian style meal is definitely a rich, hearty, meaty lasagna, with a fresh green salad and some crusty, warm bread. Yum! Love your blog! I don’t do Facebook though….
Pesto made with basil fresh from the garden. It’s simple to make and a batch usually yields enough to freeze (which I do in an ice cube tray dedicated to this purpose). Delicious with pasta and fresh veggies, chicken, shrimp, swirled into soup, on panini…endless possibilities!
My husband loves it when I make Chicken Piccata over angel hair pasta, with roasted asparagus and Caprese Salad on the side!
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We love Chicken Parmesan and pretty much anything Italian my family will eat up! I would like to try my hand at making Gnocchi.
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