Thursday Night Dinner - Gnocchi with Fresh Greens, Tomatoes, and Walnuts

Recently, I have received some requests to add more food-related posts. Seeing as I eat food multiple times every single day, I doubt that this request will be too difficult to fulfill. And so we have this evening's dinner:

Gnocchi with Fresh Greens, Tomatoes, and Walnuts

I know this isn't a great picture, but I cooked dinner after Pilates class, so it was like 8pm, I was wicked hungry, and I wasn't very patient or willing to try for photography perfection. Anyhow, this recipe came from the book " The Vegetarian 5-Ingrediant Gourmet" by Nava Atlas. I was introduced to this book by my friend Katie B during my June trip to Utah. Katie has been a creative-cooking vegetarian for as long as I've known her (since September 1995) and has been my inspiration to try a number of new dishes.

This is a very simple meal. Basically, you do the following:

1. Cook gnocchi according to instructions on the package.

2. Saute garlic and oil for about 2 minutes.

3. Add greens (I used kale, but you can also use spinach or chard) and cover. Steam for about 1-4 minutes depending on greens used (Kale takes a little longer). Add tomatoes and cook until heated. The recipe didn't call for it, but I also added walnuts to the mix. This was primarily with the intention of including protein to the meal, however, it also added some depth to the flavor as well as a nice nutty crunch.

4. Combine gnocchi with greens mixture. I topped it with shredded parmesean cheese (which you can't see in the photo because I hadn't added it yet).

Of course, the kale and tomatoes came from my CSA and the cheese, oil, garlic and walnuts are organic and from the co-op. Admittedly, the gnocchi is a commercial brand from Trader Joe's. What can I say? I'm not perfect in my organic-ness, people.