Not for the Picky Eater

I don't know about you, but I get so tired of catering to the picky eaters in my house.  They won't eat this and they won't eat that, and for sure if you mix these two together, absolutely not.  It's too cheesy, it's too spicy, it's too whatever..... the list goes on and on.

So tonight, I decided to do something different.  I found a copy-cat recipe for Olive Garden's chicken and gnocchi soup and decided to try it.  Looked at the recipe and then went out on my own - what else is new??

Here's an approximation of what I used

glop of oil
2 Tbsp butter

1 medium onion, finely diced
1 stalk of celery, finely diced
2 garlic cloves, minced

2 Tbsp flour

1 can evaporated milk
1 c water

1 c shredded carrots
1 package of gnocchi
3 pieces of fri-chik

sprinkle of thyme, nutmeg and cayenne

1 tsp. powdered chicken seasoning

Couple handfuls of baby spinach

I put the onions, celery, and garlic in a pan to saute and soften -- while they were cooking I put on a pot of water for the gnocchi.

Once the veggies were soft, I added the flour and cooked it out for a couple of minutes, added the milk and water and whisked until smooth.

Meanwhile the gnocchi is cooking away -- when it was done I roughly drained it and added it along with the carrot and the fri-chik to the pot. 

Tasted and add the seasonings -- tasted again and added the chicken seasoning.  The gnocchi thickened it up nicely, so I added a bit of water and turned up so it was almost boiling -- not quite, didn't want to curdle the milk :-)  While it was getting warm, I roughly chopped the spinach and added it to the pot, left it in just enough to wilt it -- it was still a pretty green color and not stringy and nasty!!  (Before I added the spinach I took some out for the girls)

 (not my picture, but there wasn't any left and I forgot to take picture before it was gone)

 

 

It turned out pretty good -- next time I won't add the chicken and would probably not finely shred the carrots -- they turned the soup into "cream of carrot" which wasn't bad, just turned it a little orange.  Anyway, next time, I would largely shred them and put them in just before I put in the flour, just enough to soften them, but leave whole strips.

 

All in all -- for a throw together, it turned out pretty good!!  The girls tasted it -- Hannah liked it, especially the gnocchi -- Rachel ate it.