Quick Meals #3

Another quick-meal-random-mashup. :) 

Part One: Mushroom tortellini (pre-fab ones) tossed in cream of chicken and mushroom soup (from the can), with fresh tomatoes, diced onions, white button mushrooms, seasoning and grated Parmesan cheese. 

Part Two: Marinated pork chops. I honestly don't quite recall which spices I used. Looking at the picture there must have been fresh black pepper, dried rosemary and fresh parsley (snip, snip). Knowing me I probably also added a pinch of salt, brown sugar and olive oil. Popped them straight into the oven at 200°C until juices ran clear and glazed with honey at the end. 

(http://sd.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk/i/it-s-gonna-be-legen-wait-for-it-dary.png)

The chops were tasty fresh out of the oven but they were legen-wait-for-it-dary at 2:48am in the morning. O.o

Final Verdict: You can't go wrong with pork chops and a white sauce.

Gnocchi!

I have already made these twice in three days! Containing so few ingredients (2 pounds russet potatoes, 1/3 to 1/2 cup flour, 1 egg and Parmesan cheese as desired - even the last two are optional), these little potato balls are very satisfying as comfort food. They are, however, tricky to make right and definitely require lots of practice to be able to make them like a true Italian. 

Heads up: Do not freeze!!! They can be kept in the fridge up to a week or so but freezing them was the worst idea ever. The texture changed and the gnocchi fell apart when boiled in water and tasted like gooey gunk afterwards. Trust me on this one. Eating nasty mushy gnocchi that you'd spent hours making will make you feel minuscule. Moreover, it will destroy a part of any confidence that you may normally have in the kitchen.

It seems that the most important thing is achieving the right potatoes-flour ratio which depends entirely on the absorbency of the potatoes you buy. 

Serving them with a cream sauce (shown below) or a simple tomato sauce does the trick.